alterity
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of alterity
First recorded in 1425–75; Middle English alterite “change, transformation, difference,” from Middle French alterité, from Late Latin alteritāt-, stem of alteritās “alternation, change,” equivalent to alter “other” + -i- connecting vowel + -tās noun suffix, modeled on Greek heterótēs “otherness, difference”
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.
His contributions to the 2022 Whitney Biennial, on view through Sept. 5 — three fanciful portraits of Erik Prince, the financier and founder of the private security firm Blackwater — depict a powerful white man at leisure among roomfuls of work focused on abstraction and alterity.
From New York Times
To call what’s just happened in Texas “medieval” is wrong, but this is a common move intending to impose what we call “chronological alterity” between us and something that we abhor.
From Slate
That alterity set in motion a series of experiences that gave my life meaning and gave me an advantage that I think is incredibly precious and hard-won.
From New York Times
A scholastic dissertation on the relationship between “alterity and ipseity” — otherness and selfhood, to use common language — becomes almost satirical juxtaposed with a painting of an attractive young woman casually posed in regal profile on a throne-like upholstered chair.
From Los Angeles Times
And, to be honest, I’m very charmed by the image of freshman Deborah Treisman rushing out of her graduate seminar on alterity to make it in time for gamelan drumming.
From The New Yorker
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.
