a. and sb. [a. Fr. altérant pr. pple. of altérer to ALTER.]

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  A.  adj. Producing alteration or change.

2

1626.  Bacon, Sylva, § 800. Whether the Body be Alterant, or Altered, evermore a Perception preceedeth Operation.

3

1879.  Whitney, Sansk. Gram., 57. The vowels that cause the alteration of s to ş may be called … ‘alterant’ vowels.

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  B.  sb.

5

  1.  Anything that alters, or changes the state of another.

6

1750.  Leonardus’s Mirr. Stones, 41. Both from the water and the sun, and from extrinsic alterants.

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1879.  G. Gladstone in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 76. Importance of mordants consists in their so fixing the colours … and that of alterants in their bringing out or changing the tint.

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  † 2.  spec. An alterative medicine. Obs.

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1720.  J. Quincy, in Phil. Trans., XXXI. 75. We frequently meet with, in practical Writers, many of this sort mention’d, as Alterants.

10

1737.  Bracken, Farriery Impr. (1756), II. vi. 221. Then Vomits, Purgatives, and proper Alterants take place.

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1753.  Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Alterants are supposed to exert their power chiefly on the humours of the body.

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