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The expression of spoken sounds by an alphabet. Encyc. Brit.

A lead ore found in Cornwall, England, and used by potters to give a green glaze to their wares; potter's ore.

Prior to some specified time, either past, present, or future; by this time; previously. "Joseph was in Egypt already." Exod. i. 5. I say unto you, that Elias is come already. Matt. xvii. 12.

The profit which accrues to the priest, by reason of the altar, from the small tithes. Shipley.

fferent; to vary; to change; as, the weather alters almost daily; rocks or minerals alter by exposure. "The law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." Dan. vi. 8.

Capable of being altered. Our condition in this world is mutable and uncertain, alterable by a thousand accidents. Rogers.

me. Milton. Appius Claudius admitted to the senate the sons of those who had been slaves; by which, and succeeding alterations, that council degenerated into a most corrupt. Swift.

Characterized by wrangling; scolding. [R.] Fielding.

Acting by turns; alternate. Milton. Altern base (Trig.), a second side made base, in distinction from a side previously regarded as base.

mats, of rotation in precedence among representatives of equal rank, sometimes determined by lot and at other times in regular order. The practice obtains in the signing of treaties and conventions between nations.

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. And bid alternate passions fall and rise. Pope.

In reciprocal succession; succeeding by turns; in alternate order.

The quality of being alternate, or of following by turns.

reciprocal succession of things in time or place; the act of following and being followed by turns; alternate succession, performance, or occurrence; as, the alternation of day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter, hope and fear.

Succession by turns; alternation. [R.] Sir T. Browne.

The elevation of a point, or star, or other celestial object, above the horizon, measured by the arc of a vertical circle intercepted between such point and the horizon. It is either true or apparent; true when measured from the rational or real horizon, apparent when from the sensible or apparent horizon.…

Formerly the part sung by the highest male, or counter-tenor, voices; now the part sung by the lowest female, or contralto, voices, between in tenor and soprano. In instrumental music it now signifies the tenor.

A compound formed from the hydrate of aluminium by the substitution of a metal for the hydrogen.

lyporus) which grows on old trees; German tinder; punk. It has been employed as a styptic by surgeons, but its common use is as tinder, for which purpose it is prepared by soaking it in a strong solution of niter. Ure.

tal; -- applied particularly to the process of separating gold and silver from their ores by mixing them with mercury. Ure.