Alternate
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
"Grateful alternates of substantial peace."
- 2 someone who takes the place of another person wordnet
- 3 A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty. US
"Corridors beyond this point have collapsed. I'm looking for an alternate. Careful."
- 4 A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
- 5 A replacement of equal or greater value or function. US
- 1 To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly. transitive
"The most high God, in all things appertaining unto this life, for sundry wise ends alternates the disposition of good and evil."
- 2 do something in turns wordnet
- 3 To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with. intransitive
"The flood and ebb tides alternate with each other."
- 4 go back and forth; swing back and forth between two states or conditions wordnet
- 5 To vary by turns. intransitive
"The land alternates between rocky hills and sandy plains."
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 reverse (a direction, attitude, or course of action) wordnet
- 7 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. transitive
"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."
- 8 be an understudy or alternate for a role wordnet
- 9 exchange people temporarily to fulfill certain jobs and functions wordnet
- 1 Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly). not-comparable
"And bid alternate passions fall and rise"
- 2 Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly).; Alternating; (of e.g. a pair of tinctures which a charge is coloured) succeeding in turns, or (relative to the field) counterchanged. not-comparable
"Goldschmidt (Austria; creation July 27, 1862): [...] party, argent and gules, an eagle of alternate colors, [...]"
- 3 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. not-comparable
"the alternate members 1, 3, 5, 7, etc."
- 4 Other; alternative. US, not-comparable
"Hyperlinked text is displayed in alternate color in a Web browser."
- 5 Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence not-comparable
"Many trees have alternate leaf arrangement (e.g. birch, oak and mulberry)."
- 1 occurring by turns; first one and then the other wordnet
- 2 every second one of a series wordnet
- 3 of leaves and branches etc.; first on one side and then on the other in two ranks along an axis; not paired wordnet
- 4 serving or used in place of another wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Odd numbers alternate with even ones."
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin alternātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin alternō (“to take turns”) (see -ate (1,2 and 3)), from alternus (“one after another, by turns”), from alter (“other”) + -nus. Doublet of altern; see also alter.
Related phrases
More for "alternate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.