sporadic
spuh-RAD-ikadjMeaning happening now and then, at irregular times
Memory hook SPORE-adic: popping up here and there. After the rain, mushrooms pop up from scattered spores: one here, two there, none over there. They appear at sporadic spots and times.
We heard only sporadic birdsong in the cold woods: a chirp here, then nothing for an hour.
In context The town’s internet service was sporadic: it might work all morning, vanish for an hour, return for ten minutes and then fail again.
Similar occasional, irregular, scattered, intermittent
Opposite regular, constant, steady
From Greek sporadikos, “scattered,” related to spora, “a sowing,” the source of spore.