alternatingly
1
5.8
- adverb
- /ˌɔːltərˈneɪtɪŋli/
:
alternadamente
- If you have a 60-year cycle, the worst possible time span to look at data is 30 years, as you are alternatingly trending along the maximum and subsequently the minimum natural variation.
Examples
-
Emma was alternatingly shy and engaging, but was causing no stir.
Blog text (25) -
Andrew had begun to wax euphoric as he cut into his pancakes about the same alternatingly dreary and vulgar landscape through which Peter and Anna had driven.
Fiction book (1993) -
Her hair is bright blond on top, dark blond along the part, then alternatingly blond and light brown down to the edges of her shag cut, where the color is wheat-yellow.
Fiction book (1995) -
What Beach actually built was a tunnel that was large enough to transmit a car that held 22 passengers by alternatingly blowing and sucking air, much in the same way that interoffice letters were (and in some places still are) sent around in buildings.
Blog text (30) -
The lights in the theater flickered alternatingly, creating a mesmerizing pattern of brightness and darkness.
-
During the race, the athletes ran alternatingly fast and slow, depending on the laps.
-
The teacher asked the students to read alternatingly from the textbook, allowing each one a turn to speak.
Synonyms
19
3.6
Happens one after the other in a regular pattern
2
4.3
In a way that repeats at regular times
Surface Forms
Morphology
alternatingly = alternating (transparent) = alternate + ing + ly
The adverb is formed by adding the productive adverbial suffix '-ly' to 'alternating', and the meaning 'in a way that happens by turns' follows directly.
Etymology
The word alternatingly comes from alternate, which is built on the old word alter that means 'other' or 'another'. So to do something alternatingly is to do it 'by turns' or 'one after the other'.