ALTER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Alter

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/ˈɔltər/ Listen

verb

Alter v. t. (past & past part. altered; pres. part. altering)

To make otherwise; to change in some respect, either partially or wholly; to vary; to modify. "To alter the king's course." "To alter the condition of a man." "No power in Venice can alter a decree." "It gilds all objects, but it alters none." "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips."

To agitate; to affect mentally. (Obs.)

To geld. (Colloq.)

Synonyms: Change, Alter. Change is generic and the stronger term. It may express a loss of identity, or the substitution of one thing in place of another; alter commonly expresses a partial change, or a change in form or details without destroying identity.

Alter v. i. To become, in some respects, different; to vary; to change; as, the weather alters almost daily; rocks or minerals alter by exposure. "The law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not."

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Etymology of 'Alter'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Alter" Quotes from Famous Books

... that isn't the one I mean. I mean the first one. He had it all up; then some little thing didn't suit him. The next day I came in again. All struck—sloughed—every bit of it— and a new one started. 'Lloyd,' I said, 'just think a minute— that's my money!' What good did it do? He even began to alter the new set! He would only go on, encouraging Werner and the other directors to change their sets, to lose time in trying for foolish effects, anything at all ...

— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately,—I repeat it and I call on any man who hears me, to take down my words;—you have not been elected for this purpose,—you are appointed to act under the Constitution, not to alter it,—you are appointed to exercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer them,—and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the government,—you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land ...

— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Nay, hold! fix over it our proclamation of ten thousand florins for the heretic's head! Ten thousand? methinks that is too much now—we will alter the cipher. Meanwhile Rinaldo Orsini, Lord Senator, march thy soldiers to St. Angelo; let us see if the heretic can stand ...

— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... and Bombay, and the introduction of the grant-in-aid system, have effected in the educational department a change so great that it may be called a revolution. The studies in mission schools are to a large extent what they were, but they have come under new conditions, which greatly alter the proportionate attention given to them, and the degree of zeal with which they are prosecuted. Under the grant-in-aid system missionaries are allowed full liberty in giving Christian instruction to their pupils. The only thing required by the ...

— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... and important party, who felt the safety of their newly-established and severely-reformed Church to be in doubt if not in danger, and who hated and feared "the mass" and the priests who performed it as they did the devil (with whom indeed they were more amiably familiar), does not alter the fact that the anticipation of Mary's return was a happy one, and her welcome cordial and without drawback. Nobody knew that there had been a project of a landing at Aberdeen, where Huntly and the other northern lords had proposed to meet her with twenty thousand men, thus ...

— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

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