alternate

[…]

/[…]/ verb

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“alternate” is uncommon German (frequency #60,328 among 6,976 “A” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#60,328
frequency rank, German
6,976
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - etwas wechselt sich kontinuierlich

Corpus desk

Index DE-alternate · alternate · German

alternate · rank #60,328 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #60,328
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,976
  • PHOTO-FINISH alteingesesse…

Nearest frequency peer: alteingesessene (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Langschwanz-Ränge nahe „alternate“

Dünnes Band: Balken invertieren den Rang, seltenere Formen wirken kürzer

corpus weight

What this shows Langschwanz-Sicht: wo „alternate“ gegen ähnlich seltene deutsche Ränge sitzt.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for alternate
PropertyValue
Headwordalternate
LanguageGerman
Part of speechVerb
IPA[…]
Letters9
Frequency rank#60,328
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Langschwanz-Rang von „alternate“ im Deutschen

Die Häufigkeit läuft von den wenigen Alltagswörtern (links) bis zur langen, seltenen Schwanzseite (rechts).alternatefällt in diesen Seltenheitsbereich:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Die Skala ist logarithmisch (jeder Tick ≈ 10× seltener). Seltene Nachbarn derselben Bandbreite: „alteingesessene“ (#60,327), „anfügen“ (#60,329), „Alleinherrschaft“ (#60,326). Unter 6,976 „A“-Lemmata liegt „alternate“ bei #60,328. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

alternate is uncommon German at frequency #60,328 among 6,976 “A” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed […]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

alternate doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct German form is alternate, spelled A-L-T-E-R-N-A-T-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    etwas wechselt sich kontinuierlich
  2. 2
    etwas oder jemand wechselt sich ständig mit etwas oder jemand

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how alternate appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Day alternates with night.
  2. My sister and I alternated in doing the dishes.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "alternate"?
"alternate" is spelled A-L-T-E-R-N-A-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is […].
What does "alternate" mean?
As a verb, "alternate" means: etwas wechselt sich kontinuierlich
How do you pronounce "alternate"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "alternate" is […]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "alternate" come from?
"alternate" is a German word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar German words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "alternate", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked German headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

absondern#60,316Aubergine#60,350aufbäumen#60,351überstieg#60,303

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list