Alter vs Deface - What's the difference?
alter | deface |
To change the form or structure of.
* Bible, Psalms lxxxix. 34
* Shakespeare
* Alexander Pope
To become different.
To tailor clothes to make them fit.
To castrate, neuter or spay (a dog or other animal).
(obsolete) To agitate; to affect mentally.
To damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
* 1869:
To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value.
* 1776:
(heraldry, flags) To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.
As an adjective alter
is .As a verb deface is
to damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.alter
English
Alternative forms
* altre (obsolete)Verb
(en verb)- My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
- No power in Venice can alter a decree.
- It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
- (Milton)
Derived terms
* alterer * alterability * alterative * alterable * alterablyExternal links
* *Anagrams
* * * * * ----deface
English
Verb
(defac)- That wondrous frame where melody began / Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.
- He defaced the I.O.U. notes by scrawling "void" over them.
- One-and-twenty worn and defaced' shillings, however, were considered as equivalent to a guinea, which perhaps, indeed, was worn and ' defaced too, but seldom so much so.
- You get the Finnish state flag by defacing the national flag with the state coat of arms placed in the middle of the cross.