A ausência de uma definição padrão para sistemas intermitentes de abastecimento de água:Panorama das definições utilizadas na literatura e pelas Agências Reguladoras Brasileiras ABSTRACTThere are over 1 billion consumers around the world supplied by intermittent water service, whose operation is hazardous to the public health, can generate inequity in water supply, can reduce infrastructure lifetime, increases the consumers' costs and reduces efficiency of the system. The drawbacks are well-known and despite considerable negative impacts shown before such operation is carrying by several water companies. There is still a considerable gap in the literature that needs to be filled in order to identify a standard definition of intermittent water supply. This paper focus on the identification of how the literature and the Brazilian regulatory agencies are dealing with the lack of a standard definition. A procedure used was a systematic review of definition related to intermittency in the literature and a manual searching process on Brazilian regulatory agencies policies. Our analysis indicated that a missing standard definition of intermittency in water supply results in a wide variety of terms and definitions that are inefficient in the characterization of the problem and are often divergent. We recognize the need for a standard definition of intermittent water supply systems to improve the quality of water services.