alternately
Britishadverb
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mr. Lewis is alternately magnetized and repulsed by Sellers and goes to exhaustive lengths to comprehend him, eventually resorting to quoting Sellers—a believer in the power of the Ouija board—via a spiritual medium.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026
None of that means, mind you, that this alternately idiotic and delusional document — described in that Economist editorial, using an enjoyable Anglo-idiom, as “a dog’s breakfast” — is not dangerous.
From Salon • Dec. 7, 2025
The result is alternately charming and clashing — why, I wondered, isn’t the animation done in a 1970s style to better complement the film?
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2025
Elizabeth is also the conscience of the piece, befriending the Creature and being alternately attracted to Victor and repulsed by what she sees as his moral degeneracy—never mind his abdication of parental responsibility.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 6, 2025
He turned his head slowly, without breaking his forward movement of alternately planted poles and thrust skis, rhythmically but feebly continuous like a homemade piston engine’s.
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
