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The state of being altered; a change made in the form or nature of a thing; changed condition. Ere long might perceive Strange alteration in 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…

Gradually changing, or tending to change, a morbid state of the functions into one of health. Burton.

To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly. The most high God, in all things appertaining unto this life, for sundry wise ends alternates the disposition of good and evil. Grew.

A current which periodically changes or reverses its direction of flow.

r decay of sight, from loss of power in the optic nerve, without any perceptible external change in the eye; -- called also gutta serena, the "drop serene" of Milton.

To change or modify in any way for the better; as,

An alteration or change for the better; correction of a fault or of faults; reformation of life by quitting vices.

Cell division in which there is first a simple cleavage of the nucleus without change in its structure (such as the formation of chromosomes), followed by the division of the cytoplasm; direct cell division; -- opposed to mitosis. It is not the usual mode of division, and is believed by many to occur chiefly in highly…

A rhizopod. common in fresh water, capable of undergoing many changes of form at will. See Rhizopoda.

Exhibiting or producing two colors, as substances which in the color test may change red litmus to blue and blue litmus to red.

nto a strong and deep amusement, revolving in my mind, with great perplexity, the amazing change of our affairs. Fleetwood.

Pertaining to anabolism; an anabolic changes, or processes, more or less constructive in their nature.

A want of grammatical sequence or coherence in a sentence; an instance of a change of construction in a sentence so that the latter part does not syntactically correspond with the first part.

Literally, the letters of a word read backwards, but in its usual wider sense, the change or one word or phrase into another by the transposition of its letters. Thus Galenus becomes angelus; William Noy (attorney-general to Charles I., and a laborious man) may be turned into I moyl in law.

Not changed in form by inversion. Anallagmatic curves, a class of curves of the fourth degree which have certain peculiar relations to circles; -- sometimes called bicircular quartics. -- Anallagmatic surfaces, a certain class of surfaces of the fourth degree.

A morbid or monstrous development, or change of form, or degeneration.

of a vane above, connected in the building with a dial or index with pointers to show the changes of the wind.

An ancient gold coin of England, bearing the figure of the archangel Michael. It varied in value from 6s. 8d. to 10s. Amer. Cyc.

An aromatic umbelliferous plant (Archangelica officinalis or Angelica archangelica) the leaf stalks of which are sometimes candied and used in confectionery, and the roots and seeds as an aromatic tonic.

lution, the period in which a planet or satellite goes through the complete cycles of its changes of anomaly, or from any point in its elliptic orbit to the same again. -- Anomalistic, or Periodical year. See under Year.