Definition of "alternate"

alternate

/ɒl.ˈtɜː(ɹ).nət/

adjective
not comparable
1. Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly).
  Quotations
  And bid alternate passions fall and rise
  1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W. Lewis […], published 1711
  One of the two boxes displaced by the new Pelaw installation will be Springwell, between Boldon Colliery and Pelaw, which has recently had the distinction of being manned by a husband and wife on alternate shifts.
  1960 September, “Talking of Trains: Newcastle signal area enlarged”, in Trains Illustrated, page 522
  The service is half-hourly as far as Harrogate and Knaresborough, with alternate trains going on to York.
  2021 December 15, Robin Leleux, “Awards honour the best restoration projects: The Arch Company Award for Urban Heritage: Knaresborough”, in RAIL, number 946, page 56
  1. (heraldry) Alternating; (of e.g. a pair of tinctures which a charge is coloured) succeeding in turns, or (relative to the field) counterchanged.
    Quotations
    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. (mathematics) 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.
3. (US) Other; alternative.
4. (botany, of leaves) Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence
noun
plural alternates
1. That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
  Quotations
  Grateful alternates of substantial peace.
  1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], (please specify the page)
2. (US) A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
  Quotations
  Corridors beyond this point have collapsed. I'm looking for an alternate. Careful.
  2007 September 25, Bungie, Halo 3, v1.0, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox 360, level/area: Cortana
3. (mathematics) A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
4. (US) A replacement of equal or greater value or function.
verb
third-person singular simple present alternates, present participle alternating, simple past and past participle alternated
1. (transitive) To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
  Quotations
  The most high God, in all things appertaining unto this life, for sundry wise ends alternates the disposition of good and evil.
  1701, Nehemiah Grew, Cosmologia Sacra
2. (intransitive) To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with.
3. (intransitive) To vary by turns.
4. (transitive, geometry) To perform an alternation (removal of alternate vertices) on (a polytope or tessellation); to remove vertices (from a face or edge) as part of an alternation.
  Quotations
  This case suggests that the alternation of a polyhedron should be bounded by actual vertex figures and alternated faces. The case of the cube is in agreement with this notion, since the alternated square is nothing.
  1932, Harold Scott Macdonald Coxeter, The densities of the regular polytopes, part 2‎, reprinted in 1995, F. Arthur Sherk, Peter Mcmullen, Anthony C. Thompson, Asia Ivić Weiss (editors), Kaleidoscopes: Selected Writings of H. S. M. Coxeter, page 54

Definition of "alternate"

alternate

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noun

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verb

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