Other forms: alternating, alternated, alternates
To alternate is to take turns one after the other. Alternate between the two, alternating current, on alternate days.
Alternating current reverses direction fifty or sixty times a second, and it won out over direct current because it can be transformed to high voltage for transmission. Note that Americans use alternate where the British say alternative, which causes real confusion.
1verbalternateTo take turns one after the other.
“My sister and I alternate: she cooks one night and I cook the next.”
alternate is a taking turns.
Latin alternare means to do by turns, from alternus, one after another, from alter, the other of two.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂el- (other)
Latin
alternātus
English, today
alternate
Built from
Latin alternātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin alternō (“to take turns”) (see -ate), from alternus (“one after another, by turns”), from alter (“other”) + -nus. a doublet of altern; see also alter.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA