Sporadická

Sporadická is the feminine singular form of the Czech adjective sporadický, used to describe something that occurs irregularly or infrequently, without a regular pattern. It denotes a scattered, inconsistent distribution or appearance of events, cases, or phenomena. The masculine and neuter forms are sporadický and sporazické (sic: neuter forms are sporadické), and the adverb form is sporadicky.

The term derives from Greek sporadikos meaning scattered, and it has been adopted into Czech with a similar sense. In everyday language as well as in science, it is used to characterize occurrences that do not follow a predictable schedule or frequency, such as sporadické případy (isolated cases), sporadický výskyt (irregular occurrence), or sporadické nálezy in fields like archaeology or geology.

In medicine and epidemiology, sporadic is used to distinguish cases that arise without a known hereditary link from familial or genetic forms. For example, sporické onemocnění or sporadické případy may refer to illnesses appearing without a familial pattern, contrasting with hereditary or clustered occurrences. The concept is also applied in statistics and ecology to describe data or species observations that are irregular and sparsely distributed.

Related terms include the adverb sporadicky (sporadically) and contrasts to pravidelný (regular), častý (frequent), endemický (endemic), and epidemický (epidemic), which describe more systematic or patterned patterns of occurrence.