Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home 		English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Alternative   /ɔltˈərnətɪv/   Listen
adjective
Alternative  adj.  
1.
Offering a choice of two things.
2.
Disjunctive; as, an alternative conjunction.
3.
Alternate; reciprocal. (Obs.)


noun
Alternative  n.  
1.
An offer of two things, one of which may be chosen, but not both; a choice between two things, so that if one is taken, the other must be left. "There is something else than the mere alternative of absolute destruction or unreformed existence."
2.
Either of two things or propositions offered to one's choice. Thus when two things offer a choice of one only, the two things are called alternatives. "Having to choose between two alternatives, safety and war, you obstinately prefer the worse."
3.
The course of action or the thing offered in place of another. "If this demand is refused the alternative is war." "With no alternative but death."
4.
A choice between more than two things; one of several things offered to choose among. "My decided preference is for the fourth and last of these alternatives."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar




"Alternative" Quotes from Famous Books



... There is an alternative. You are interested in social problems. You are a student of sociology. Those whom I represent are genuinely interested in you. We are prepared, so that you may pursue your researches more deeply—we are prepared to send you to Europe. There, in that ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... therefore no alternative but to adjourn to the nearest confectioner's shop and eat some sweets there. That the night would not pass in peace we were sure; but nobody dared suggest that we should not pass the night in the haunted house. Once having defied the Ghost we had ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... accepting the other in their place, he would fain make his hearers believe that he has always held and taught as he now wishes he had done. It is either a case of disingenuousness or of remarkable self-deception: there appears to be no third alternative." ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... have an extreme jealousy of their husbands and female slaves. If they observe the least familiarity between them, they set no bounds to their revenge against the poor creatures, who, in general, have no alternative but that of gratifying their masters, or experiencing very harsh usage from them. On such discovery, their mistresses punish them in different ways, whipping them with ropes; or beating them with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... going on, all force must at last turn into heat, in which case all difference of temperature would be lost and universal stagnation and death would be the result. He then concludes in the following words, which we quote from Nature, Macmillan's weekly: "We are come to this alternative; either in our highest, or most general, our most fundamental scientific abstractions some great point has been overlooked; or the universe will have an end, and must have had a beginning; could not have existed from eternity, but must ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson


More quotes...


Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com