alternative
Listen:Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
alternative/ɔːlˈtɜːnətɪv/
▶adjective
- 1 (of one or more things) available as another possibility.
■ (of two things) mutually exclusive.
- 2 relating to activities that depart from or challenge traditional norms.
– derivatives
alternatively adverb.
alternatively adverb.
– origin C16: from Fr. alternatif, -ive or med. L. alternativus, from L. alternat-, alternare ‘do by turns’, from alternus ‘every other’, from alter ‘other of two’.
usage: Some traditionalists maintain that, because of the word's origin, you can only have a maximum of two alternatives, and that uses where there are more than two are wrong. Such uses are, however, normal in modern standard English.
'alternative' also found in these Oxford entries:
AIM
- alias
- allele
- allograph
- alt.
- alter ego
- alternate
- alternative dispute resolution
- alternative energy
- alternative fuel
- alternative medicine
- Alt key
- aura
- bi-
- bioenergetics
- blonde
- bypass
- captive
- chair
- chairperson
- Christian name
- comparable
- contribute
- craniosacral therapy
- cross-check
- decade
- default
- diversion
- drop
- due
- fallback
- faute de mieux
- grammar
- hara-kiri
- he
- HFC
- instead
- iridology
- ketone bodies
- logical necessity
- man
- -man
- mickle
- Ms
- mute
- naturopathy
- neurolinguistic programming
- New Age
- nothing
