Verb

(en verb)

  To control or keep in check.

  To deprive of liberty.

  To restrict or limit.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17

, author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot , title=Money just makes the rich suffer , volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […]  The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.}}

Verb

(en verb)

To change the form or structure of.

* Bible, Psalms lxxxix. 34

My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

* Shakespeare

No power in Venice can alter a decree.

* Alexander Pope

It gilds all objects, but it alters none.

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.

(Milton)