Adverb

(en adverb)

From time to time; now and then; once in a while; irregularly; at infrequent intervals.

*1592 , Gabriel Harvey, "Fovre Letters", Miscellaneous Tracts , page 56

*:Were nothing els di?cour?ively in?erted (as ?ome little el?e occa?ionally pre?ented it ?elfe), what paper more currently fit for the bare?t mechanicall u?es,...

*1619 , John Richardson, John Toland, The canon of the New Testament Vindicated , page 30

*:I think it is plain, that Origen'', whatever Character he may have occa?ionally given of this Book, did not judge it any part of the ''Canon ...

*1639 , Henry Ainsworth, Annotations Upon the Five Books of Moses, the Book of the Psalmes and the Song of Songs , page 177.

*:God ?etteth no houres for the morning or evening ?acrifice because they may occa?ionally be changed.

* 1855 , Horace Mann, "On the Statistical Position of Religious Bodies in England and Wales," Journal of the Statistical Society of London , vol. 18, no. 2, p. 152,

Some perhaps worship only on alternate Sundays; others still more occasionally .

* 1978 , Stephen R. Graubard, "Twenty Years of 'Daedalus'," Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , vol. 32, no. 3, p. 18,

The journal, more occasionally , has turned to what might be called "fashionable" themes.

* 2007 , Matt Gouras/AP, " Wildfires Rage in Montana," Time , 17 Aug,

Flames could still be seen from town flaring up occasionally on a hill dotted with emergency vehicles.

Adverb

(-)

On certain occasions, or in certain circumstances, but not always.

* (Jeremy Taylor)

It is good that we sometimes be contradicted.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Obama goes troll-hunting , passage=The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.}}

(obsolete) On a certain occasion in the past; once.

* (William Shakespeare)

That fair and warlike form / In which the majesty of buried Denmark / Did sometimes march.

* :

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

*, II.3.7:

they detract, scoffe, and raile (saith one), and bark at me on every side; but I, like that Albanian dog sometimes given to Alexander for a present, vindico me ab illis solo contemptu ; I lie still, and sleep, vindicate myself by contempt alone.