different between elective vs alternate

English

Etymology

elect +? -ive

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??l?kt?v/
• Rhymes: -?kt?v

Adjective

elective (comparative more elective, superlative most elective)

1. Of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.

   Synonym: electoral

   Antonyms: appointive, hereditary

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Works of Virgil […] translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, dedicatory preface to the Marquess of Normanby,^[2]

     For his Conscience could not but whisper to the Arbitrary Monarch, that the Kings of Rome were at first Elective, and Govern’d not without a Senate:

   • 1782, William Cowper, “The Progress of Error” in Poems, London: J. Johnson, p. 43,^[3]

     Man thus endued with an elective voice,

     Must be supplied with objects of his choice.

   • 1854, George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent, Boston: Little, Brown, Volume 6, Chapter 35, p. 185,^[4]

     […] they rested their hopes of redress on the independent use of their elective franchise;

   • 1860, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, “Proto-Leaf,” p. 21,^[5]

     See the populace, millions upon millions, handsome, tall, muscular, both sexes, clothed in easy and dignified clothes?teaching, commanding, marrying, generating, equally electing and elective;

   • 1896, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, “The South African Question” in Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi, Madras: G.A. Natesan, 3rd edition, 1922, p. 6,^[6]

     [The bill] says that no natives of countries (not of European origin) which have not hitherto possessed elective representative institutions […] shall be placed on the voters roll […]

2. Open to choice; freely chosen.

   Synonyms: discretionary, optional, voluntary

   Antonyms: compulsory, mandatory, obligatory, required, involuntary

   • 1654, Thomas Hobbes, Of Libertie and Necessitie, London: F. Eaglesfield, pp. 12-13,^[7]

     […] his Lordship is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it, differs from an action voluntary and elective, for even the setting of a mans foot, in the posture for walking, and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done, and though afterward it became easie & habitual so as to be done without fore-thought, yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceedeth from election.

   • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne & Son, and T. Cadell, Volume 5, Book 9, Chapter 8, pp. 160-161,^[8]

     “You know not then,” said Cecilia, in a faint voice, “my inability to comply?”

     “Your ability, or inability, I presume are elective?”

     “Oh no!—my power is lost!—my fortune itself is gone!”

   • 2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup, Toronto: Viking, p. 23,^[9]

     [Her friends] are, after all, her elective siblings who have distanced themselves from the ways of the past, their families […]

   • 2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah, New York: Knopf, Chapter 38, p. 346,^[10]

     “ […] That blog is a game that you don’t really take seriously, it’s like choosing an interesting elective evening class to complete your credits.”

   • 2019, Dave Eggers, The Parade, New York: Vintage, p. 130,

     Now some adventuring imbecile had acquired an elective sickness and was paying its price.

Related terms

• elect
• election

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

elective (plural electives)

1. Something that is an option or may be freely chosen, especially a course of study.

Translations

Anagrams

• cleveite

References

English

Etymology

From Latin altern? (“take turns”), from alternus (“one after another, by turns”), from alter (“other”) + -rnus. See altern, alter.

Pronunciation

Adjective, noun

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?l.?t??(?).n?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??l.t?.n?t/, /??l.t?.n?t/

Verb

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??l.t?(?).?ne?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??l.t?.ne?t/, /??l.t?.ne?t/

Adjective

alternate (not comparable)

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

4. (botany, of leaves) Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gray to this entry?)

Usage notes

• In British English this adjective means, according to OED and other sources, one after the other or similar. It does not mean the same as alternative, which OED specifically marks as an American meaning of alternate. In international English it is thus thought better to observe the British distinction: then the meanings of alternative and alternate will be clear to everyone.

Derived terms

Related terms

• alternation
• alternative

Translations

Noun

alternate (plural alternates)

1. That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
   • 1718, Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vanity of the World

     Grateful alternates of substantial peace.

2. (US) A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
3. (mathematics) A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
4. (US) A replacement of equal or greater value or function.
5. (heraldry) Figures or tinctures that succeed each other by turns.

Translations

Verb

alternate (third-person singular simple present alternates, present participle alternating, simple past and past participle alternated)

1. (transitive) To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
2. (intransitive) To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with.

3. (intransitive) To vary by turns.

4. (transitive, geometry) 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.

Translations

See also

• variant

Further reading

• alternate at OneLook Dictionary Search
• The Manual of Heraldry, Fifth Edition, by Anonymous, London, 1862, online at [2]
• alternate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• alternate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “alternate”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Italian

Verb

alternate

1. second-person plural present indicative of alternare
2. second-person plural imperative of alternare
3. feminine plural of alternato

Adjective

alternate f

1. feminine plural of alternato

Anagrams

• alterante

Latin

Verb

altern?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of altern?