Where does “alter” come from?
alter (Middle English) comes from Old English alter, from Latin altare, from Latin adolere, from Latin adoleo, from Latin ad-, from Latin īn-, from Latin în, from Latin en — in.
Ancestry of “alter”, step by step
alter traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Old English alter
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Old English | alter | — |
| 2 | Latin | altare | present active infinitive of altō; altar, fitting... |
| 3 | Latin | adolere | present active infinitive of adoleō;... |
| 4 | Latin | adoleo | I emit an odor, smell; I magnify or pile up with... |
| 5 | Latin | ad- | to; usually prefixed to verbs, in which cases it... |
| 6 | Latin | īn- | un-, non-, not |
| 7 | Latin | în | in, at, on, upon, from (space) |
| 8 | Latin | en | lookǃ beholdǃ; reallyǃ?; come onǃ |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | en | in |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | h₁én | in |