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alternate

/ˈɔl.tɚ.nət/adjective, noun, verb

alternate is spelled A-L-T-E-R-N-A-T-E: 9 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,957th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “alternate vs alternative” about 3,600 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, alternate means “Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in alternate?

Letters9: A-L-T-E-R-N-A-T-E
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing13 times per million words; the 5,957th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How common is alternate?

Alternate appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,957th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce alternate?

  • UK /ɒlˈtɜː(ɹ).nət/
  • UK /ɔːlˈtɜː(ɹ).nət/
  • US /ˈɔl.tɚ.nət/

As a verb (“To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed…”): /ˈɒl.tə(ɹ)ˌneɪt/, /ˈɔːl.tə(ɹ)ˌneɪt/, /ˈɔl.tɚ.neɪt/.

Alternate has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-alternate-adj.wav, En-us-alternate-noun-adj.ogg, LL-Q7979-Soundguys-alternate.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with alternate

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

alternate vs alternative3,600 G

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of alternate

  • alternates plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • alternating participle, present
  • alternated participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does alternate mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly).

  2. 2

    Alternating; (of e.g. a pair of tinctures which a charge is coloured) succeeding in turns, or (relative to the field) counterchanged.

  3. 3

    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.

    the alternate members 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.

  4. 4

    USOther; alternative.

    Hyperlinked text is displayed in alternate color in a Web browser.

  5. 5

    Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence

    Many trees have alternate leaf arrangement (e.g. birch, oak and mulberry).

noun

  1. 1

    That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.

  2. 2

    USA substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.

    An alternate for the first-string quarterback played the entire first half.

  3. 3

    A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.

  4. 4

    USA replacement of equal or greater value or function.

verb

  1. 1

    To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.

  2. 2

    To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with.

    The flood and ebb tides alternate with each other.

  3. 3

    To vary by turns.

    The land alternates between rocky hills and sandy plains.

  4. 4

    To perform an alternation (removal of alternate vertices) on (a polytope or tessellation); to remove vertices (from a face or edge) as part of an alternation.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate alternate?

Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of alternate: alt, altn..

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Alternate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Germanalternierend, wechselnd, abwechselnd, Wechsel- (being or succeeding by turns), jeweils anderer, jeweils andere (mathematics: designating the members in a series)
Portuguesealternado, alternante (being or succeeding by turns), alternativo (other; alternative), substituto, substituta (substitute), alternar (to perform by turns)
Spanishalterno (being or succeeding by turns), sustituta, sustituto (substitute), alternar (to perform by turns)
Frenchalternatif, alternative (other; alternative), alterner (to vary by turns)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does alternate come from?

Borrowed from Latin alternātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin alternō (“to take turns”) (see -ate (1,2 and 3)), from alternus (“one after another, by turns”), from alter (“other”) + -nus. Doublet of altern; see also alter.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after alternate