alter

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɔːl.tə/, /ˈɒl.tə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɔl.tɚ/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈɑl.tɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːltə(ɹ)
• Homophone: altar
• Hyphenation: al‧ter

From Old French alterer (French altérer), from Medieval Latin alterare (“to make other”), from Latin alter (“the other”), from al- (seen in alius (“other”), alienus (“of another”), etc.; see alias, alien, etc.) + compar. suffix -ter.

alter (third-person singular simple present alters, present participle altering, simple past and past participle altered)

1. (transitive) To change the form or structure of.
   • Bible, Psalms lxxxix. 34

     My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

   • Shakespeare

     No power in Venice can alter a decree.

   • Alexander Pope

     It gilds all objects, but it alters none.

2. (intransitive) To become different.
3. (transitive) To tailor clothes to make them fit.
4. (transitive) To castrate, neuter or spay (a dog or other animal).
5. (transitive) To affect mentally, as by psychotropic drugs or illness.
   • 2016 February 10, Sydney Pruitt and Claire Ricke (quoting Jeff Barrick), "Police: Man lying in street hit, killed by Capital Metro bus", KXAN:

     We don't know if he was altered on alcohol or drugs or anything […]

• altre (obsolete)

• alteration
• alternate
• alternative

• alter in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• alter in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Probably from alter ego.

alter (plural alters)

1. (especially in the plural) One of the identities or personalities of a person with multiple personality disorder / dissociative identity disorder.
   • 2012, Robert J. Kohlenberg, ‎Mavis Tsai, Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (→ISBN):

     Often this process is highly aversive and evokes avoidance; that is, it can be very anxiety provoking to the host to be told that she is a multiple much less than to be told the details of an alter's experience. [...] She stated that she was now integrated, but that every day she meditated and visualized each of her alters[.]

• Alert, alert, altre, artel, later, ratel, taler, telar

From Old Norse altari, from Old Saxon altari, from Latin altare (“altar”), cognates with Icelandic altari.

alter n (singular definite altret or alteret, plural indefinite altre)

1. altar

• IPA^(key): /ˈʔaltɐ/

alter

1. inflection of alt:
   1. strong and mixed nominative masculine singular
   2. strong genitive and dative feminine singular
   3. strong genitive plural

From Proto-Indo-European *h₂élteros (“the other of two”) (akin to English other). Akin to alius. Confer with ulter.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈal.ter/, [ˈaɫ.tɛr]

alter (feminine altera, neuter alterum); first/second declension

1. the other, the second
2. the one...the other (alter...alter)

First/second declension, nominative masculine singular in -er, with genitive singular in -īus and dative singular in -ī.

• adulter
• altercor
• alterō
• alteruter

• alter in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• alter in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• alter in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • one or two days: unus et alter dies
    
  • one, two, several days had passed, intervened: dies unus, alter, plures intercesserant
    

alter n (definite singular alteret / altret, indefinite plural alter / altere / altre, definite plural altera / altra / altrene)

1. an altar

alter m

1. indefinite plural of alt

• altar

alter n (definite singular alteret, indefinite plural alter, definite plural altera)

1. an altar