- (also alternate especially in North American English)[only before noun] that can be used instead of something else
- The road was closed so we had to find an alternative route.
- Can you offer an alternative explanation?
- an alternative method of working
- Do you have an alternative solution?
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- [usually before noun] different from the usual or traditional way in which something is done
- alternative therapy/treatments
- an alternative lifestyle
- Medicine made of mould must once have seemed very alternative.
Word Originmid 16th cent. (in the sense ‘alternating, alternate’): from French alternatif, -ive or medieval Latin alternativus, from Latin alternare ‘interchange’, from alternus ‘every other’, from alter ‘other’.
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alternative