altn.

Noun

alteration (countable and uncountable, plural alterations)

1. The act of altering or making different.
   • …alteration, though it be from worse to better, hath in it inconveniences…1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
   1. A minor adjustment to clothing, such as hemming or shortening, to make it fit better.
2. The state of being altered; a change made in the form or nature of a thing; a changed condition.
   • The doctors don't see any alteration in the patient's condition.

Adjective

alternate (not comparable)

1. Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly).
   • And bid alternate passions fall and rise1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC
   1. Alternating; (of e.g. a pair of tinctures which a charge is coloured) succeeding in turns, or (relative to the field) counterchanged.
      • Goldschmidt (Austria; creation July 27, 1862): [...] party, argent and gules, an eagle of alternate colors, [...]1925, The Jewish Encyclopedia: Chazars-Dreyfus Case, page 128
2. 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. Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence
   • Many trees have alternate leaf arrangement (e.g. birch, oak and mulberry).

See all 13 meanings of alternate