alternation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English alternacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman alternacioun and Middle French alternacion,^[5][6] and directly borrowed from Latin alternātiō (“alternate movement; an interchanging”),^[5][6][2][7] which Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com label Late Latin.^[3][8] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1315,^[9] and the OED cites it from before 1321 in the phrase par alternacioun (“by turns”).^[5] The Latin noun is formed on the past participle of alternō (“to do first one thing, then the other”),^[5][4][7] from alternus (“one after the other, in turns”), from alter (“the other”).^[4] It is the noun of alternate.^[7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Two things following each other by turns: about 1443, in R. Pecock's Reule of Crysten Religioun, which speaks of making alternaciouns or chaungis.^[5][2] Etymonline likewise has the mid 15th century,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged the 15th century,^[3] while Dictionary.com has only 1605–15.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant the succession of two things by turn, and Johnson (1755) still defined it as "the reciprocal succession of things".^[5][10] From 1642, in Milton, it also meant doing something by turns, as in reading or singing antiphonally.^[5] Later technical uses include a mathematical sense of permutation or of transposing the terms of a proportion, now obsolete (1685–1862),^[5] and, in the 19th century, the layers of a material (1815), an alternating pattern (1830, in Lyell), a reversal of electric current (1843) and the biological alternation of generations (1845).^[5] Logic took the word in 1862 for the function expressed by "or",^[5][3] and linguistics in 1894 for the variation of a feature of speech.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1443 – two things succeeding each other by turn.^[5][2]
• 1633 – successive change or variation (obsolete by 1868).^[5]
• 1642 – alternate performance, antiphonal reading or singing.^[5]
• 1685 – in mathematics, permutation (obsolete by 1827).^[5]
• 1815 – each of the layers in a material of two substances.^[5]
• 1830 – an alternating pattern or placement.^[5]
• 1843 – the reversal of an electric current.^[5]
• 1845 – alternation of generations, in biology.^[5]
• 1862 – in logic, the function of alternative propositions.^[5]
• 1894 – in linguistics, variation in a feature of speech.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The following of two things or states by turns: the alternation of wet and dry seasons.^[3][11][5]
2. The doing of something by two actors in turn, as in antiphonal singing.^[5][6]
3. An alternating pattern or placement, or each layer of a material composed of two substances.^[5]
4. The reversal of an electric current at regular short intervals, or a half-cycle of it.^[5]
5. (logic) A statement of the form “p or q”, with inclusive or; the connective or operation it uses; also called disjunction.^[3][11][5]
6. (linguistics) The variation shown by a feature of speech or language, often in sound or form.^[5]
7. alternation of generations: in biology, a life cycle of plants and some invertebrates in which two distinct forms follow each other.^[5][6]

Word family

• alternation of generations

Related words

• alternate
• alter
• alternative

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins