alternate

From Latin alternō (“take turns”), from alternus (“one after another, by turns”), from alter (“other”) + -rnus. See altern, alter.

Adjective, noun

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɒlˌtɜː(ɹ).nət/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɔl.tɚ.nət/, /ˈɑl.tɚ.nət/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Verb

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɒl.tə(ɹ)ˌneɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɔl.tɚ.neɪt/, /ˈɑl.tɚ.neɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

alternate (not comparable)

1. Being or succeeding by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; by turns first one and then the other; hence, reciprocal.
   • (Can we date this quote by Alexander Pope?)

     And bid alternate passions fall and rise.

2. (mathematics) Designating the members in a series, which regularly intervene between the members of another series, as the odd or even numbers of the numerals; every other; every second.

   the alternate members 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.

3. (US) Other; alternative.

   Hyperlinked text is displayed in alternate color in a Web browser.

4. (botany) Distributed, as leaves, singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gray to this entry?)

alternate (plural alternates)

1. That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
   • Matthew Prior

     Grateful alternates of substantial.

2. (US) A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
3. (mathematics) A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
4. (US) A replacement of equal or greater value or function.
5. (heraldry) Figures or tinctures that succeed each other by turns.

alternate (third-person singular simple present alternates, present participle alternating, simple past and past participle alternated)

1. (transitive) To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
   • 1701, Nehemiah Grew, Cosmologia Sacra,

     The most high God, in all things appertaining unto this life, for sundry wise ends alternates the disposition of good and evil.

2. (intransitive) To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with.

   The flood and ebb tides alternate with each other.

3. (intransitive) To vary by turns.

   The land alternates between rocky hills and sandy plains.

4. (transitive, geometry) To perform an alternation (removal of alternate vertices) on (a polytope or tessellation); to remove vertices (from a face or edge) as part of an alternation.
   • 1932, Harold Scott Macdonald Coxeter, The densities of the regular polytopes, part 2, reprinted in 1995, F. Arthur Sherk, Peter Mcmullen, Anthony C. Thompson, Asia Ivić Weiss (editors), Kaleidoscopes: Selected Writings of H. S. M. Coxeter, page 54,

     This case suggests that the alternation of a polyhedron should be bounded by actual vertex figures and alternated faces. The case of the cube is in agreement with this notion, since the alternated square is nothing.

• alternative
• variant

• alternate at OneLook Dictionary Search
• The Manual of Heraldry, Fifth Edition, by Anonymous, London, 1862, online at
• alternate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• alternate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• alternate in The Online Etymology Dictionary

alternate

1. second-person plural present indicative of alternare
2. second-person plural imperative of alternare
3. feminine plural of alternato

alternate f

1. Feminine plural form of alternato

• alterante

alternāte

1. first-person plural present active imperative of alternō