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otherwise; to change in some respect, either partially or wholly; to vary; to modify. "To alter the king's course." "To alter the condition of a man." "No power in Venice can alter a decree." Shak. It gilds all objects, but it alters none. Pope. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my l…

The quality of being alterable; alterableness.

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

The quality of being alterable; variableness; alterability.

In an alterable manner.

Altering; gradually changing. Bacon.

The act of altering or making different. Alteration, though it be from worse to better, hath in it incoveniences. Hooker.

Causing ateration. Specifically:

The contend in words; to dispute with zeal, heat, or anger; to wrangle.

ords; dispute carried on with heat or anger; controversy; wrangle; wordy contest. "Stormy altercations." Macaulay.

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

lity of being other; a being otherwise. [R.] For outness is but the feeling of otherness (alterity) rendered intuitive, or alterity visually represented. Coleridge.

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

Alternateness; alternation. [R.] Mitford.

Composed of alternate layers, as some rocks.

A usage, among diplomats, 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.

ssion 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.

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