alternative

Meanings

Adjective

• Relating to a choice between two or more possibilities.
• Other; different from something else.
• Not traditional, outside the mainstream, underground.
• Alternate, reciprocal.

Noun

• A situation which allows a mutually exclusive choice between two or more possibilities; a choice between two or more possibilities.
• One of several mutually exclusive things which can be chosen.
• The remaining option; something available after other possibilities have been exhausted.
• A non-offensive word or phrase that serves as a replacement for a word deemed offensive or unacceptable, though not as a euphemism.

Origin

• From Middle French alternatif, from Medieval Latin alternātīvus, from the participle stem of Latin alternō. Compare alternate.