alternate, or alternate

t. & i. [ALTERNATE, a.] [ALTERN, α. & v.] A. Transitive: To perform by turns with another person or persons, or to change one thing for another reciprocally, i.e. , to do first the one, then the other, and afterwards the first again, uniformly observing the same order of succe ion as long as the operation goes on. "The most high God, in all things appertaining unto this life, for sundry wise ends, alternates the disposition of good and evil."-Grew. "Those who in their course, Melodious hymns about the sov'reign throne Alternate all night long."- Milton : P. L., bk. v. B. Intransitive: 1. In time: To happen by turns with another occurrence. 44 tempests quickly alternated with sunshine.-Froude: Hist. of Eng., pt. i., vol. iv., 94. 2. In place : In turns to precede and then to follow anything else. Often used in geology for a bed, or a series of beds again and again recurring in a section; but in most cases what now are succe ive re-appearances in place were produced in a remote age by the return of the same combination of circumstances in time bus as we proceed northwards to Yorkshire, it [the mountain limestone] begins to alternate with true coal measures. "-Lyell: Manual of Geol., ch. xxiv.