still and anon

English

Adverb

still and anon (not comparable)

1. (literary) Now and then.
   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     And like the watchful minutes to the hour,
     Still and anon cheered up the heavy time.

   • 1810, John Stagg, “Odo the Proud”, in The Minstrel of the North: or, Cumbrian Legends‎^[1], London: for the author, page 374:

     It seem’d as if hell had burst forth in a crowd,
     And fury permitted to range;
     When still and anon was re-echo’d aloud—
     “Come forth, thou base tyrant! thou Odo the Proud!
     For Morcar and Hilda, revenge!”

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Yes, I remember, and, Still Remember Wailing” published posthumously in George S. Hellman and William P. Trent (eds.), Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Chicago, 1921, p. 121,^[2]

     And as across the smoothing sea we roam,

     Still and anon we sang our songs of home.

Synonyms

• ever and anon