alternate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To occur in a successive manner: day alternating with night.
2. v. To act or proceed by turns: The students alternated at the computer.
3. v. To pass back and forth from one state, action, or place to another: alternated between happiness and depression.
4. v. Electricity To reverse direction at regular intervals in a circuit.
5. v. To do or execute by turns.
6. v. To cause to alternate: alternated light and dark squares to form a pattern.
7. adj. Happening or following in turns; succeeding each other continuously: alternate seasons of the year. See Usage Note at alternative.
8. adj. Designating or relating to every other one of a series: alternate lines.
9. adj. Serving or used in place of another; substitute: an alternate plan.
10. adj. Botany Arranged singly at each node, as leaves or buds on different sides of a stem.
11. adj. Botany Arranged regularly between other parts, as stamens between petals.
12. n. A person acting in the place of another; a substitute.
13. n. An alternative.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To do or perform by turns, or in succession.
2. To cause to succeed or follow one another in time or place reciprocally; interchange reciprocally.
3. To follow one another in time or place reciprocally: generally followed by with: as, the flood and ebb tides alternate one with the other.
4. To pass from one state, action, or place to a second, back to the first, and so on indefinitely: used with between, and sometimes with from: as, he alternates between hope and despair, or from one extreme to another; the country alternates between woods and open fields.
5. Being by turns; following each the other, recurringly, in succession of time or place; hence, reciprocal.
6. Specifically, in botany: Placed at unequal heights upon the axis: as, alternate leaves, which are solitary at the nodes, in distinction from opposite or verticillate.
7. Opposite to the intervals between organs: as, petals which are alternate with sepals, or stamens with petals.
8. Belonging to a series between the two members of every pair in which a member of another series intervenes; having one intervening between the two of each pair; every second: as, to read only the alternate lines; the odd numbers form one series of alternate numerals, the even numbers another.
9. Consisting of alternating parts or members; proceeding by alternation: as, an alternate series; alternate riming; alternate proportion.
10. In cryptogamic bot, the passage of a plant through a succession of unlike generations before the initial form is reproduced. Usually the succession is one in which one sexually produced form alternates with another produced asexually. The alternation of those sexually produced may be with those parthenogenetically produced (heterogenesis or heterogamy, which see), or with those produced by budding (metagenesis).
11. n. That which happens by turns with something else; vicissitude.
12. n. In political conventions and some other representative bodies, one authorized to take the place of another in his absence; a substitute.
13. In elect, same as alternating.

Wiktionary

1. adj. 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.
2. adj. 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.
3. adj. US Other or alternative.
4. adj. botany Distributed, as leaves, singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence. --Gray.
5. n. That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
6. n. A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
7. n. mathematics A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
8. n. US A replacement of equal or greater value or function.
9. n. heraldry Figures or tinctures that succeed each other by turns.
10. v. transitive To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
11. v. intransitive To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time;—followed by with.
12. v. intransitive To vary by turns.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. 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.
2. adj. 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; ; read every alternate line.
3. adj. (Bot.) Distributed, as leaves, singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence.
4. n. rare That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
5. n. A substitute; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
6. n. (Math.) A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
7. v. To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
8. v. To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; -- followed by with.
9. v. To vary by turns.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. exchange people temporarily to fulfill certain jobs and functions
2. n. someone who takes the place of another person
3. v. be an understudy or alternate for a role
4. adj. every second one of a series
5. v. reverse (a direction, attitude, or course of action)
6. adj. of leaves and branches etc; first on one side and then on the other in two ranks along an axis; not paired
7. v. do something in turns
8. adj. occurring by turns; first one and then the other
9. adj. serving or used in place of another
10. v. go back and forth; swing back and forth between two states or conditions