From Middle English alter, from Old English alter, taken from Latin altare, probably related to adolere ("burn"); thus "burning place", influenced by altus ("high").

• (RP) IPA: /ˈɒl.tə/, /ˈɔːl.tə/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɔl.tɚ/
• (cot-caught) IPA: /ˈɑl.tɚ/

altar (plural altars)

1. A table or similar flat-topped structure used for religious rites.
   • c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC ↗, page 62, lines 9–14:

     To hawke, or els to hunt
     From the auter to the funt,
     Wyth cry unreverent,
     Before the sacrament,
     Wythin the holy church bowndis,
     That of our fayth the grownd is.

2. (informal) A raised area around an altar in a church; the sanctuary.
3. (figurative) Any (real or notional) place where something is worshipped or sacrificed to.
   • 2000, Alain Renaut, M. B. De Bevoise, Era of the Individual: A Contribution to a History of Subjectivity:

     […] now marking the end of ascetic rationalism, the monadology no longer implied a sacrifice of individuality on the altar of rationality.

• French: autel
• German: Altar
• Italian: altare
• Portuguese: altar
• Russian: алта́рь
• Spanish: altar