alters

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of alter.

   Heat alters the chemical structure of the protein.

   A tailor carefully alters the jacket so the shoulders sit right.

   Note

   The form a single subject takes in the present: she alters, the climate alters. It works with an object or without one. Heat alters the protein, but a coastline simply alters over time. With animals it means neutering: the shelter alters every dog it takes in. The same spelling is also the plural for separate identities, so after an article (the alters) it is always the noun, never the verb.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of alter.

   The patient described how the various alters take turns handling stressful situations.

   Two of her alters kept detailed journals that the others never read.

   Note

   A clinical plural, at home in accounts of dissociative identity disorder and other forms of multiplicity, where each alter is one self among several in a single person. It counts like any ordinary noun: two alters, all her alters. Keep it apart from altars, the tables of worship. Writing alter for altar is a misspelling, so neither spelling can stand in for the other.

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