• (British) IPA: /ˈɒlˌtɜː(ɹ).nət/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɔl.tɚ.nət/, /ˈɑl.tɚ.nət/

Verb

• (British) IPA: /ˈɒl.tə(ɹ)ˌneɪt/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɔl.tɚ.neɪt/, /ˈɑl.tɚ.neɪt/

alternate (not comparable)

1. Being or succeeding by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; by turns first one and then the other; hence, reciprocal.

   alternate picking is a guitar playing technique

   • 1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: Printed for W. Lewis […], published 1711, OCLC 15810849 ↗:

     And bid alternate passions fall and rise

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.

   the alternate members 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.

3. (US) Other; alternative.

   Hyperlinked text is displayed in alternate color in a Web browser.

   He lives in an alternate universe and an alternate reality.

4. (botany) Distributed, as leaves, singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence.

   Many trees have alternate leaf arrangement (e.g. birch, oak and mulberry).

• German: alternierend, wechselnd, abwechselnd, Wexhsel-
• Italian: alterno, alternato
• Portuguese: alternado, alternante
• Spanish: alterno

• German: jeweils anderer, jeweils andere, jeweils anderes

• French: alternatif, alternative
• German: alternativ, abgeändert, andersartig, anderer , andere, anderes
• Portuguese: alternativo
• Spanish: alterno

• German: wechselständig

alternate (plural alternates)

1. That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.

   • Grateful alternates of substantial.

2. (US) A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
3. (mathematics) A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
4. (US) A replacement of equal or greater value or function.
5. (heraldry) Figures or tinctures that succeed each other by turns.

• Spanish: sustituta, sustituto

alternate (alternates, present participle alternating; past and past participle alternated)

1. (transitive) To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
   • 1701, Nehemiah Grew, Cosmologia Sacra,

     The most high God, in all things appertaining unto this life, for sundry wise ends alternates the disposition of good and evil.

2. (intransitive) To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with.

   The flood and ebb tides alternate with each other.

3. (intransitive) To vary by turns.

   The land alternates between rocky hills and sandy plains.

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.
   • 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 ↗,

     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.

• German: alternieren
• Portuguese: alternar
• Spanish: alternar

• German: abwechseln, alternieren
• Portuguese: alternar
• Spanish: alternar

• French: alterner
• German: wechseln, alternieren
• Portuguese: alternar