sporadiques

Sporadiques is the plural form of the French adjective sporadique, used to describe occurrences that are irregular, infrequent, or scattered in time or space. In English-language contexts the closest cognate is sporadic. The term is commonly used in epidemiology to characterize cases that occur singly or in unrelated small clusters rather than as part of a regular outbreak. It is also used in archaeology, linguistics, meteorology, and other fields to denote findings or events that do not exhibit a predictable pattern.

Etymology: The term derives from Latin sporadicus, from Greek sporadikos, meaning scattered. In French, sporadiques is the plural form of the adjective; in English, the corresponding term is sporadic.

Usage examples: In epidemiology, the French phrase des cas sporadiques describes sporadic cases; these are not part of outbreaks. In archaeology and paleontology, finds described as sporadiques occur irregularly across sites or time periods. In linguistics, sporadiques can refer to rare or irregular forms that appear infrequently.

Note: The usage is primarily French; English writers typically translate as sporadic or irregular, and do not usually use the word sporadiques in English texts.