remittent

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   medicine: decreasing in severity at intervals without disappearing completely

   The physician recorded a remittent fever that eased each morning but never fully subsided.

2. 2
   adj

   alternately becoming weaker and stronger in intensity or frequency

   The patient received only remittent attention as the household grew distracted.

3. 3
   noun

   medicine, dated: a fever or disease whose symptoms periodically abate without vanishing

   The expedition doctor diagnosed the illness as a tropical remittent.

Borrowed from Latin remittent-, the stem of remittens, present participle of remittere ('send back, relax, abate'), the source of remit and remission. Medical use distinguishes remittent symptoms, which lessen but do not fully cease, from intermittent symptoms, which disappear between episodes.

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