Synonyms:
convulsive, spasmodic, spastic
Meaning: affected by involuntary jerky muscular contractions; resembling a spasm; "convulsive motions"; "his body made a spasmodic jerk"; "spastic movements"
Usage examples
With one spasmodic bound the animal dropped dead.
His detachment from his kind was at first spasmodic, then exceptionally complete.
If observatories were conducted on these unsystematic and spasmodic principles, they would not be the calm, accurate, satisfactory places they are.
His eyes, bulging with terror, avoided us, while his right hand, with a spasmodic movement, twitched at the beard that covered his honest, gentle, and now despairing face.
In ordinary attacks of this kind Catharine had power to soothe and allay the spasmodic action of the muscles, and gradually release her husband from the terrible gripe of the disease, but now he would not suffer her to come near him.
Abram took out his jack-knife, and dotting a row of grains along the top rail, he split and shaved them down as fine as possible; and as he reached one end of the rail, the Cardinal, with a spasmodic "Chip!" dashed down and snatched a particle from the other, and flashed back to the bush, tested, approved, and chipped his thanks.