ALTERNATELY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In an alternating sequence or position

Example:

he planted fir and pine trees alternately

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

alternate (occurring by turns; first one and then the other)

Credits

Context examples:

Then there was Monsieur Rudin, the French Royalist refugee who lived over on the Pangdean road, and who, when the news of a victory came in, was convulsed with joy because we had beaten Buonaparte, and shaken with rage because we had beaten the French, so that after the Nile he wept for a whole day out of delight and then for another one out of fury, alternately clapping his hands and stamping his feet.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How Henry would think, and feel, and look, when he returned on the morrow to Northanger and heard of her being gone, was a question of force and interest to rise over every other, to be never ceasing, alternately irritating and soothing; it sometimes suggested the dread of his calm acquiescence, and at others was answered by the sweetest confidence in his regret and resentment.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

So, alternately beating and beaten, they made their dolorous way through the beautiful woods and under the amber arches of the fading beech-trees, where the calm strength and majesty of Nature might serve to rebuke the foolish energies and misspent strivings of mankind.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Elinor was alternately diverted and pained; but Marianne persevered, and saw every night in the brightness of the fire, and every morning in the appearance of the atmosphere, the certain symptoms of approaching frost.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I should not allow, said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately, my suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart's content.