noun
definition
A person who does something only occasionally.
adjective
definition
Occurring or appearing irregularly from time to time, but not often.
example
He took an occasional glass of wine.
definition
Created for a specific occasion.
example
Elgar's music was not created to be occasional music for high-school graduations.
definition
Intended for use as the occasion requires.
example
What your living room needs are some occasional chairs.
definition
Acting in the indicated role from time to time.
example
He is an occasional writer of letters to the editor.
Examples of occasional in a Sentence
The rain was still coming down hard and there were occasional rumbles of thunder.
The only sound Sarah had made throughout the ordeal was an occasional sniff, as she attempted to wipe away the product of her distress with the back of her hand.
Rostov, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional glance at Ilyin, who was pressing close to him.
Her presence reduced Cynthia's domestic chores and eliminated the need for Dean and Fred to pick up more than the occasional dust rag.
Besides some occasional references in the text, only a few more of the general works dealing with the distribution of birds can here be mentioned.
The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.
After the reign of Xerxes, Persis and Persepolis became utterly neglected, in spite of occasional visits, and even the palaces of Persepolis remained in part unfinished.
By Darian's occasional laugh and the hungry fire in Xander's features, they enjoyed killing.
The forest floor was rocky, with occasional yellow flowers and some kind of ground cover with tiny blue flowers.
Only an occasional sound of brush being pushed aside indicated he was still behind her.
She inclined her head to indicate the endless sand, broken only by an occasional yucca or chickweed.
Occasional meetings are either in hunt effectum or pro re nata.
Deep into the night he would continue his studies, stimulating his senses by occasional cups of wine, and even in his dreams problems would pursue him and work out their solution.
But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed of them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave that the story about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a pretense, and that the whole attention of that company was directed to-- Pierre and Helene.
They glided past snow-covered fields and occasional farmhouses, drifting smoke from their chimneys skyward and adding a hint of wood smoke to the crisp winter air.
With regard to the occurrence of plants, such as Juncus effusus, which possess xerophytic characters and yet live in situations which are not ordinarily of marked physiological dryness, it should be remembered that such habitats are liable to occasional physical drought; and a plant must eventually succumb if it is not adapted to the extreme conditions of its habitat.
By mutual agreement with both Daniel Brennan and Merrill Cooms, our conversations are reduced to an occasional call, for security sake.
What was new in them was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of their affairs.
The only sound was the muffled sound of hooves in the sand and the occasional clink of a harness.
Save for occasional pilgrimages, including one to Jerusalem in 1373, she remained in Rome till her death on the 23rd of July 1373.
Occasional outbreaks of cholera occur from time to time, and in the independent states these cause terrible loss of life, as the natives fly from the disease and spread the infection in every direction.
An occasional sharp high bark soon revealed the source as a little gray squirrel.
It was on these byways that Dean opted to travel, rolling along the river with the down of cottonwoods filling the air like a winter snowstorm, past the occasional farm house, fields, and ever-present vista of mountains wrapping around him.
However much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.
For the next week she cautiously accepted his occasional displays of affection.
Cassie squinted into the darkness, searching for a target, but all she could see was dust and an occasional hoof.
For ten years Evagoras carried on hostilities single-handed, except for occasional aid from Egypt.
She is a good talker on the little occasional affairs of life.
Other than occasional attempts to draw him out, she respected his privacy.
Receipts were attached to all reports, mostly for inexpensive meals and an occasional beer or two.
Throughout the region north of the Apennines no plants will thrive which cannot stand occasional severe frosts in winter, so that not only oranges and lemons but even the olive tree cannot be grown, except in specially favoured situations.
My studies for the first year were English history, English literature, German, Latin, arithmetic, Latin composition and occasional themes.
A dock-side crane unloading cargo with high lifts following one another in rapid succession will require a higher load factor than a workshop traveller with a very short lift and only a very occasional maximum load; and a traveller with a very long longitudinal travel will require a higher load factor for the travelling motor than for the lifting motor.
This is shown by the occasional appearance of r instead of final s.
He could spot the rider now and again with occasional glances and by counting off the seconds between points they both passed, knew he was gaining, if ever so slowly.
Closer study showed an occasional comma and apostrophe.
For subscribers who desire the telephone for occasional use, the party-line system has been devised, whereby several telephones are connected to one line leading to the exchange.
In spite of occasional secessions which brought severe punishment upon the island (1 453, 1 479), the rule of the Giustiniani was not abolished till 1566.
In addition, the communes have a right to levy a, surtax not exceeding 50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and buildings; a family tax, or fuocatico, upon the total incomes of families, which, for fiscal purposes, are divided into various categories; a tax based upon the rent-value of houses, and other taxes upon cattle, horses, dogs, carriages and servants; also on licences for shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant keepers, &c.; on the slaughter of animals, stamp duties, one-half of the tax on bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of interest are found in the sale of communal property, the realization of communal credits, and the contraction of debt.
In April 1897 there was still an occasional outburst of oil and gas.
A little money was earned by an occasional article in Le Producteur, in which he began to expound the philosophic ideas that were now maturing in his mind.
They are then rolled in broken leaves and stalks of the poppy and left, with occasional turning, for a week or so, when they become hard enough to bear packing.
Hamilton encouraging the confusion by speaking of "psychology or metaphysics," 1 while his lectures on metaphysics are mainly taken up with what belongs in the strictest sense to psychology proper, with an occasional excursus (as in the theory of perception) into epistemology.
After the Directions he writes little beyond occasional verses, not seldom indecent and commonly trivial.
His writings have not one literary fault except their occasional looseness of grammar and their frequent indecency.
He still continued to receive all visitors, and to take occasional runs up to Castine and Portland, the homes of his family.
An Occasional Conformity Bill, imposing penalties on those who adopted this practice, twice passed the Commons (1702, 1703), but was rejected by the House of Lords, in which the Whig element predominated.
Both contain occasional state papers, and not very trustworthy reports of parliamentary proceedings., The publication of debates was not authorized till the last quarter of the century; parliamentary papers begin earlier, but only slowly attain their present portentous dimensions.
In the specialized forms the premolars tend to become more or less completely like the molars; and, contrary to what obtains among the Carnivora, the whole series of cheek-teeth (with the occasional exception of the first) is very strongly developed.
During the exile many occasional fasts were doubtless observed by the scattered communities, in sorrowful commemoration of the various sad events which had issued in the downfall of the kingdom of Judah.