alignment
Pluralalignments
- 1An arrangement of items so that they sit evenly along a straight line.
The careful alignment of the fence posts created a perfectly straight boundary.
Workers checked the alignment of the paving stones before setting them in place.
Similararrangement, positioning
Oppositemisalignment
Note
The everyday sense the specialist ones grow from. English took it from French alignement, though it also reads naturally as align plus -ment, the suffix that turns a verb into its act or its result. That double reading lets the noun cover both the work of lining things up and the line they end up in, so an alignment can be checked, achieved or lost.
- 2The process of adjusting a mechanism's parts so they are correctly positioned relative to one another, or the resulting condition.
After the repair, the engine's alignment was nearly perfect.
Technicians spent hours restoring the alignment of the printing press.
Oppositemisalignment
- 3
- 4The precise route or course that a road, railway, footpath, or similar way follows between two points.
The proposed alignment of the highway would cut through protected forest.
Surveyors staked out the alignment of the footpath along the ridge.
Note
A route engineer's word for the line a road, railway or path actually takes, defined as a sequence of straights and curves. Because choosing that course is the real decision in a project, the word gathers planning language: a proposed alignment, a new alignment, an alignment that cuts through a forest. On paper it is drawn as the ground plan.
- 5The conjunction of two celestial objects, when they appear close together along the same line of sight.
The rare alignment of Jupiter and Saturn drew crowds of skywatchers.
Astronomers photographed the alignment as the two bodies drew close in the evening sky.
Similarconjunction
Note
Astronomers' precise term is conjunction, when two bodies share the same celestial longitude and appear at their closest separation as seen from Earth. Alignment is the looser, more popular word for the same event. Nothing is actually lined up in space; the effect depends on the viewpoint. A "rare alignment" in the news therefore describes a sight in the sky, not a geometry among the planets.
- 6One of a fixed set of moral positions or philosophies that a character may adopt in a roleplaying game.
The dungeon master asked each player to declare their character's alignment before the campaign began.
A paladin who breaks his oath may lose his lawful alignment.
Note
Role-playing games treat morality as a menu. An alignment is picked from a closed grid of options, and an alignment chart lays that grid out. Because the set is fixed, the word behaves like a label: a character has an alignment, declares it, and can lose it by acting against it. Use the article with this sense ("a lawful alignment"), as you would with any category name.
- 7The degree to which an artificial intelligence's goals and values match human ethical standards.
The lab published new methods for improving the alignment of large language models.
Without careful alignment, an advanced AI might pursue goals that conflict with human welfare.
Note
Here the word names a research problem as much as a property. It travels in fixed phrases: the alignment problem, the alignment tax, alignment risks. In 2023 Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, still introduced it as what's known as "alignment", a hedge that shows the term was still settling into general use. Melanie Mitchell's 2022 essay "What Does It Mean to Align AI With Human Values?" asks what the goal even is.
- 8A way of arranging DNA, RNA, or protein sequences so that regions of similarity can be identified.
The alignment revealed a conserved region shared across all three species.
Researchers compared the protein alignment to locate the mutation.
Note
In bioinformatics the word names both a method and its product. You run an alignment, and the result, two or more sequences set residue against residue, is also an alignment. Lining them up to maximize correspondence exposes conserved regions, mutations and evolutionary relationships. Hence phrases like "a protein alignment" or "the alignment revealed", where the arrangement itself is the evidence.
- 9The ground plan of a road or canal, showing its horizontal layout across the land.
The engineer's drawing showed the alignment of the new canal across the floodplain.
Planners reviewed the road's alignment on the site plan before construction.
Similarlayout
Note
Civil engineers use it for the view from above: the line of a road or canal drawn in plan, as distinct from the vertical profile that records gradients and levels along the same way. It sits close to the route itself but names the drawn plan rather than the course on the ground. Count it for a particular proposal (two rival alignments); leave it uncountable for the layout in general.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of alignment apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
From French alignement, formed from align and the suffix -ment.