Available choices or options that can be selected instead of something else. Different possibilities or courses of action.
From Latin 'alternativus,' meaning 'offering a choice between two things,' derived from 'alternare' (to do by turns). The concept evolved from strictly binary choices to multiple options in modern usage.
The word alternative originally implied exactly two choices - it comes from the Latin meaning 'one or the other.' Today's usage allowing for multiple alternatives would have puzzled ancient Romans, who saw it as strictly either-or.
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