Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Successive change from one thing or state to another and back again.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In phytogeography, the discontinuous occurrence of a plant type due to local variations in the conditions. See the extract.
- noun In electricity, the time of one reversal, or one half-wave of alternating current. One alternation therefore is one half-cycle. The frequency of an alternating current formerly was given in alternations per minute. See
alternating . - noun The act of alternating, or the state of being alternate; the reciprocal succession of things in time or place, or of states or actions; the act of following something and being in turn followed by it: as, the alternation of day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter.
- noun Passage back and forth; repeated transition; the action of going from one state, condition, or point to another, and back again, indefinitely: as, alternation between states of mind or between places; his alternations from one point to the other were very frequent.
- noun In mathematics: The different changes or alterations of order in numbers. More commonly called
permutation . - noun Alternate proportion (which see, under
alternate , a.). - noun 4. In church ritual, the saying or reading of parts of a service by minister and congregation alternately.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The reciprocal succession of things in time or place; the act of following and being followed by turns; alternate succession, performance, or occurrence.
- noun (Math.) Permutation.
- noun The response of the congregation speaking alternately with the minister.
- noun See under
Generation .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The reciprocal succession of (normally two) things in time or place; the act of following and being followed by turns; alternate succession, performance, or occurrence; as, the alternation of day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter, hope and fear.
- noun The response of the congregation speaking alternately with the minister.
- noun linguistics
ablaut - noun logic The "
inclusive or "truth function . - noun mathematics A
sequence thatalternates betweenpositive andnegative values. (Sometimes wrongly used to mean apermutation .)
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun successive change from one thing or state to another and back again
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A NI posting has been, in recent years, a doddle for most squaddies, especially when the alternative, the alternation is a spell in Basra or Helmand.
Pathetic army excuse about base security does nothing to answer the questions Norfolk Blogger 2009
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The tract is direct psalmody — the singing of successive verses of a psalm without refrain, and it is sung in alternation by two halves of the choir.
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Credit Suisse had said it expected around 200-300 orders to be announced this year at Farnborough, held every other year in alternation with the Paris show.
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Sunday the Mass is concelebrated by a Protestant and a Catholic, with one presiding over the liturgy of the Word and the sermon, and the other over the liturgy of the Eucharist, in alternation.
Food and Drink 2009
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When the ruling elite accept the idea of alternation of power on principle, it will be a whole lot easier to adjust the relationship between religion and state!
Meedan: Brotherhood slogan under fire as Egypt takes to the polls Meedan 2010
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When the ruling elite accept the idea of alternation of power on principle, it will be a whole lot easier to adjust the relationship between religion and state!
Meedan: Brotherhood slogan under fire as Egypt takes to the polls Meedan 2010
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Place P.P. at the coccyx or on the upper dorsal vertebra, or on both in alternation, which is better, and treat over the kidneys with N.P. five to eight minutes, once a day for three or four days.
A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication Daniel Clark
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An alternation, which is not invalidated by exceptions here and there, has been observed in the criminality of different countries, in the periodic movement of crimes and offences against property and those against the person, of such a kind that years of increase in the former usually answer to a diminution in the latter, and vice versâ.
Criminal Sociology 1899
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The source of the alternation is the generator in which the voltage (and following it naturally the current) are induced in stationary coils by a rotating magnetic field.
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a beginning or an end, we may say, employing an expression which seems somewhat paradoxical: "Only the permanent (substance) is subject to change; the mutable suffers no change, but rather alternation, that is, when certain determinations cease, others begin."
The Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant 1764
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