Being active and being inactive are used often. But is there a word for being normal that comes in between these two?
They attend the community meetings actively.
Those over there rarely attend any meetings, I'll say they are all inactive.
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One could perhaps be semi-active but that is more commonly associated with missiles than meetings.– Brian HooperCommented Nov 9, 2015 at 8:26
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Of course, Now here we have so many answers, I am not sure which one we fullfills to be awarded acceptance? Please upvote– Nick KCommented Nov 9, 2015 at 9:46
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The problem with many answers so far is that they can be emphasized. The two ends of the scale naturally can be emphasized: "very active" and "very inactive". But the middle ground cannot be emphasized. You can't be "very moderately active". Using this emphasis construct, we see that "very sporadic" means less than "sporadic", so sporadic is a synonym for inactive. Same for "very infrequently". However, "very periodically" [sic] suggests it's in fact neither extreme.– MSaltersCommented Nov 9, 2015 at 13:53
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5 Answers
Those over there rarely attend any meetings, I'll say they are all sporadic.
sporadic:
adjective
(of similar things or occurrences) appearing or happening at irregular intervals in time; occasional: sporadic renewals of > enthusiasm.
appearing in scattered or isolated instances, as a disease.
isolated, as a single instance of something; being or occurring apart from others.
occurring singly or widely apart in locality: the sporadic growth of plants.
Given:
You are active if you attend a lot of meetings.
You are inactive if you attend very few meetings.
So we need a word that means that you attend a "medium amount" of meetings.
I would suggest words that do not imply regularity or irregularity, because one can attend a meeting a "medium" number of times and do so either at periodic intervals or only sporadically (irregular intervals). Instead, I suggest that it be a word that only discusses magnitude of the total number of meetings attended, not when they happen.
Consider:
- infrequently
- occasionally
- every now and then
The problem with these is that active and inactive are adjectives, and my examples are adverbs, so you can't do a direct usage of these in the same context. The original post uses the adverbial form actively, so perhaps this is not a concern. Certainly you could say something like:
He attends meetings actively.
He attends meetings occasionally.
He attends meetings infrequently.
He attends meetings inactively. (Or: He is inactive in his meeting attendance.)
I suppose you could use periodically.
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1I would agree with this in colloquial use. However, by the definition alone, one could be active periodically (attend one meeting a week), periodically active (very active in June, completely inactive in July, very active in August, completely inactive in September), or even inactive but still attend periodically (per the OP definition, attendance once per year on the first day of spring would be "inactive," but arguably it's still periodic). Conclusion: colloquially people use periodically on the active/inactive scale, but strictly speaking it can be used to modify active/inactive.– NonnalCommented Nov 9, 2015 at 7:37
Kindly call that person modestly-active. Somebody who's performance is modest, per dictionary.com is defined as:
having or showing a moderate or humble estimate of one's merits, importance, etc.
following words can be used ...
1) partially 2) intermittently
e.g.
i am active in this discussion group i am intermittently/partially active in this discussion group i am inactive in this discussion group
