Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or procedure of altering.
  • noun The condition resulting from altering; modification.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of altering; the making of any change; passage from one form or state to another.
  • noun A change effected; a change of form or state, especially one which does not affect the identity of the subject.
  • noun In mineralogy, the change by which one mineral substance is converted into another, either with or without change of chemical composition; as, for example, the change of the oxid of copper, cuprite, to the carbonate, malachite; or of brookite to rutile, both being forms of titanium dioxid. See paramorphism and pseudomorphism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of altering or making different.
  • noun The state of being altered; a change made in the form or nature of a thing; changed condition.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of altering or making different.
  • noun The state of being altered; a change made in the form or nature of a thing; changed condition.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of revising or altering (involving reconsideration and modification)
  • noun the act of making something different (as e.g. the size of a garment)
  • noun an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French alteracion (French altération), from Medieval Latin alterātiō.

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