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Disjunctive; as, an alternative conjunction.

In the manner of alternatives, or that admits the choice of one out of two things.

The quality of being alternative, or of offering a choice between two.

Tending to conciliate; pacific; mollifying; propitiating. The only alternative, therefore, was to have recourse to the conciliatory policy. Prescott.

An argument which presents an antagonist with two or more alternatives, but is equally conclusive against him, whichever alternative he chooses.

precedes two, or more, coördinate words or phrases, and is introductory to an alternative. It is correlative to or. Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth. 1 Kings xviii. 27. Few writers hesitate to use either in what is called a triple alternative; such as, We must…

The choice, made by a party, of two alternatives, by taking one of which, the chooser is excluded from the other.

A choice without an alternative; the thing offered or nothing.

ntroversy on which the parties take affirmative and negative positions; a presentation of alternatives between which to choose or decide.

fact that it [a belief] invariably exists being the obverse of the fact that there is no alternative belief. H. Spencer.

The power of choosing; the right of choice or election; an alternative. There is an option left to the United States of America, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation. Washington.

A particle that marks an alternative; as, you may read or may write, -- that is, you may do one of the things at your pleasure, but not both. It corresponds to either. You may ride either to London or to Windsor. It often connects a series of words or propositions, presenting a choice of either; as, he may study law, o…

Of two alternatives conceived of, by preference to, or as more likely than, the other; somewhat. He sought throughout the world, but sought in vain, And nowhere finding, rather feared her slain. Dryden.

In case; if; -- used to introduce the first or two or more alternative clauses, the other or others being connected by or, or by or whether. When the second of two alternatives is the simple negative of the first it is sometimes only indicated by the particle not or no after the correlative, and sometimes it is omitted…