English

Adverb

from time to time

1. (idiomatic) Occasionally; sometimes; once in a while.
   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, scene 3:

     I'll find out your man, / And he shall signify from time to time / Every good hap to you that chances here.

   • 1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering, Ch.25:

     On these red embers Hatteraick from time to time threw a handful of twigs.

   • 1907, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “chapter IX”, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 4241346:

     “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; […]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.

   • 1922, T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, ll.196-197:

     But at my back from time to time I hear / The sound of horns and motors.

2. (law) In whatever status exists at various times.
   • 2015, Richard Painter, ‎Ann Holmes, Cases and Materials on Employment Law (page 90)

     This is another way of saying that the terms of the individual contracts are in part to be found in the agreed collective agreements as they exist from time to time […]

3. (obsolete) Continuously from one time to another; at all times, constantly.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.v:

     So was she trayned vp from time to time, / In all chast vertue, and true bounti-hed / Till to her dew perfection she was ripened.

Translations

See also

• every now and then
• now and again
• now and then