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Paroxysm vs Recurrent - What's the difference?

paroxysm | recurrent |

As a noun paroxysm

is a random or sudden outburst (of activity).

As an adjective recurrent is

recurrent; recurring.

paroxysm

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A random or sudden outburst (of activity).
  • * 1903 , (Jack London), (The Call of the Wild)
  • Unable to turn his back on the fanged danger and go on, the bull would be driven into paroxysms of rage.
  • *, chapter=23
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.}}
  • * 1955 , (Vladimir Nabokov), (Lolita)
  • «There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other»
  • * 1983 , (John Fowles), Mantissa
  • Indeed in his excitement at this breakthrough he inadvertently dug his nails into the nurse's bottom, a gesture she misinterpreted, so that he had to suffer a paroxysm of breasts and loins in response.
  • An explosive event during a volcanic eruption.
  • A sudden recurrence of a disease.
  • Derived terms

    * paroxysmal

    recurrent

    English

    Adjective

    (wikipedia recurrent) (-)
  • Recurring time after time.
  • The patient complained of recurrent chest pain.
  • (mathematics, stochastic processes, of a state) non-transient.
  • Running back toward its origin.
  • a recurrent nerve or artery

    Synonyms

    * (math) persistent

    Anagrams

    * ----