on-again, off-again

English

Alternative forms

• on-again-off-again; on-again off-again; on again, off again; on again off again

Adjective

on-again, off-again (not comparable)

1. (of a significant other such as a boyfriend or girlfriend) Intermittent; frequent but irregular.
   • 2018 September 19, Katie Rife, “Eli Roth, of all directors, brings Amblin magic to the kid-lit horror of The House With A Clock In Its Walls”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 20 September 2018:

     But the screenplay, from Supernatural creator Eric Kripke, diverts too often to inert scenes of Lewis’ struggles at school, and a subplot about his on-again, off-again friendship with bully Tarby Corrigan (Sunny Suljic) feels like a distraction from the magical business at hand.

   • 2023 January 2, Maureen O’Connor, “The Etiquette Guru Who Broke Up With a Boyfriend Over Text”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     On the ninth day of filming Netflix’s “Mind Your Manners,” the show’s host, the Shanghai etiquette teacher Sara Jane Ho, dumped her on-again-off-again boyfriend of four years in a text message.

Usage notes

• The punctuation varies significantly; in particular, the hyphens are frequently replaced with spaces, and the comma is sometimes omitted entirely.
• This adjective is nearly always used attributively.

Synonyms

• on-off

See also

• love-hate