EVERY NOW AND THEN

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Occasionally

Example:

every so often she visits her father

Synonyms:

every now and then; every so often

Classified under:

Adverbs

Credits

Context examples:

They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door—which they call by a name meaning word-bearer—came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Every now and then, by an effort, he would throw off the impression, and talk as if the matter were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had gone back once more to the great dining-room of the Abbey Grange, in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her, Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you the way I am going; follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me free.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He walked up and down the room with little, impatient steps as he talked, turning with a whisk upon his heel every now and then, as if some invisible rail had brought him up.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me a percentage on the profits.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He often expressed his uneasiness on this head, feared the sameness of every day's society and employments would disgust her with the place, wished the Lady Frasers had been in the country, talked every now and then of having a large party to dinner, and once or twice began even to calculate the number of young dancing people in the neighbourhood.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

But if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, 'I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry her,' and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

On our little walk along the quays, he made himself the most interesting companion, telling me about the different ships that we passed by, their rig, tonnage, and nationality, explaining the work that was going forward—how one was discharging, another taking in cargo, and a third making ready for sea—and every now and then telling me some little anecdote of ships or seamen or repeating a nautical phrase till I had learned it perfectly.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)