[ad. L. alternāt-us pa. pple. of alternā-re to do one thing after the other; f. altern-us ever the other, every second; f. alter the other of two, the second.]
A. adj. Done or changed by turns, coming each after one of the other kind.
1. Said of things of two kinds, so arranged that one of one kind always succeeds, and is in turn succeeded by, one of the other kind, thus
| * † * † * † * † * † * †; |
1513. More, Rich. III., Wks. 1557, 70/2. Alternate proofe, as wel of prosperitie as aduers fortune.
1647. Crashaw, Poems, 157. Alternate shreds of light Sordidly shifting hands with shades and night.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Sat. agst. Wom., Wks. 1730, I. 56. Alternate smiles and frowns, both insincere.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 12. The most opposite passions … mix with each other in the mind; alternate contempt and indignation; alternate laughter and tears; alternate scorn and horror.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xix. 315. Walls, built of alternate layers of stone and timbers.
2. Said of a series, or whole, constituted by such alternate members.
1650. Davenant, Gondib., Pref. Nor doth alternate rhyme … make the sound less heroic.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., Proem. 39. Alternate change of climate has he known.
1807. Crabbe, Village, I. 9. No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, Their country’s beauty or their nymph’s rehearse.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, Sachs’ Bot., 524. If the members of a whorl fall between the median lines of those of the next whorl above or below, the whorls are alternate.
b. Alternate generation (Biol.): genealogical succession by alternate processes; as in one generation by budding, or division, and in the next by sexual reproduction; and so on.
1858. Lewes, Sea-side Studies, 293. The doctrine of Alternate generations has been persistently denied.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon’s Med. Zool., II. I. 49. The existence of two modes of reproduction in the same species constitutes Alternate Generation.
3. Said of things of the same kind taken in two numerical sets, so that one member of each set always succeeds one of the other; thus
| 1 3 5 7 9 11 first set. | |
| 2 4 6 8 10 12 second set. |
1809. J. Barlow, Columb., IV. 237. Alternate victors bid their gibbets rise.
1858. Gladstone, Homer, I. 134. Castor and Pollux … revisited the earth in some mysterious manner on alternate days.
Mod. The minister and the people read alternate verses.
b. Alternate proportion: see quot.
1660. Barrow, Euclid, V. def. 12. Alternate Proportion is the comparing of antecedent to antecedent and consequent to consequent.
1827. Hutton, Course Math., I. 324. Alternate proportion … As, if 1:2::3:6; then, by alternation, or permutation, it will be 1:3::2:6.
4. Said (elliptically) of the members of either set as above constituted, taken by themselves apart from the other set, thus: of the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc., either 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, etc. or 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, are the alternate members = Alternate with others not taken in; every other, every second.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 107. Both these unhappy Soils the Swain forbears, And keeps a Sabbath of alternate Years.
Mod. The drawing-master comes on alternate days.
5. Said of things of the same kind occurring along the course of an axial line, first on one side and then on the other and so on; = Alternately placed. esp. in Bot. of leaves, and in Geom. of angles. (The latter are doubly alternate, being situated also on the alternate sides of the successive lines which make angles with the axial line.)
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, I. xxvii. 38. This worde alternate is … taken sometimes for a kind of situation in place.
1660. Barrow, Euclid, I. xxvii. If a right line falling upon two right lines make the alternate angles equal.
1770. Waring, in Phil. Trans., LXI. 375. Some of the stalks … have their leaves singly at the joints, alternate.
1827. Hutton, Course Math., I. 293. When a line intersects two parallel lines, it makes the alternate angles equal to each other.
1880. Gray, Struct. Bot., iv. § 1. 119. Alternate leaves are those which stand singly, one after another, that is, with one leaf to each node or borne on one height of stem.
6. Alternately performed by two agents, reciprocal.
1675. South, Serm., 1823, I. 310 (J.). Friendship consists properly in mutual offices, and a generous strife in alternate acts of kindness.
1829. U. K. S., Nat. Phil., I. II. xiii. § 104. 53. These [motions] may be divided into continued and alternate, or reciprocating.
† 7. Interchanged, exchanged for the other (of two). Obs. rare.
1590. Greene, Arcadia (1616), 36. As if … Bacchus, forsaking his heauen-borne deitie, should delude our eies with the alternate form of his infancie.
8. quasi-adv. One after the other, in turns, by turns.
1712. Pope, Temp. Fame, 486. Or wane and wax alternate like the moon.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., I. 202. Egyptian, Thracian gales alternate play.
1808. Scott, Marm., II. x. Massive arches broad and round That rose alternate row and row.
9. Comb. alternate-leaved (see 5); alternate-pinnate (Bot.): having the pinna or leaflets of a compound leaf alternate upon the midrib or petiole.
1861. Pratt, Flower. Pl., VI. 214. Alternate-leaved Spleen-wort.
B. sb. [the adj. used absol.] That which alternates with anything else; a vicissitude, an alternative.
1718. Pope, Iliad, XVIII. 117. ’Tis not in Fate the alternate now to give.
a. 1733. North, Examen, III. vi. ¶ 106. 498. The King having done all that was possible … about Alliances, and claimed the Alternate.
