once in a while

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adverb

once in a while (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) Occasionally; sometimes.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:occasionally

   I send her a note once in a while to let her know I'm thinking of her.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 2:

     He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him.

Synonyms

• every once in a while

Derived terms

• even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while
• even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while
• every once in a while

Translations

occasionally

Azerbaijani: arabir (az) Bulgarian: понякога (bg) (ponjakoga), от време на време (ot vreme na vreme) Chinese: Mandarin: 偶爾 / 偶尔 (zh) (ǒu'ěr) Danish: en gang imellem (da), indimellem Dutch: nu en dan (nl) Esperanto: de tempo al tempo Finnish: ajoittain (fi), silloin tällöin (fi) French: de temps en temps (fr) German: ab und zu (de) Greek: κάπου-κάπου (kápou-kápou), κάθε τόσο (káthe tóso), κατά διαστήματα (katá diastímata), πού και πού (el) (poú kai poú), μια (φορά) στο τόσο (mia (forá) sto tóso) Hungarian: nagy ritkán, nagy néha, időnként (hu), olykor (hu), olykor-olykor (hu), néha (hu), néha-néha (hu), hébe-hóba (hu) Italian: di tanto in tanto (it) Norwegian: Bokmål: av og til (no), nå og da, i gang i mellom Ojibwe: wiikaa Plautdietsch: enjawiess Polish: raz na jakiś czas (pl) Portuguese: de vez em quando (pt) Russian: иногда́ (ru) (inogdá), вре́мя от вре́мени (ru) (vrémja ot vrémeni), поро́й (ru) (porój) Spanish: de vez en cuando (es) Swedish: då och då (sv) Thai: please add this translation if you can

See also

• every now and then
• every so often
• from time to time
• now and again
• now and then
• sometimes