altered

adjective

al·​tered ˈȯl-tərd 

1

: made different in some way

… she addressed me again, speaking in very altered tones; so altered, that I hardly recognised them as hers.

—Wilkie Collins

… no great change had taken place inside him, but his exterior was visibly altered.

—Booth Tarkington

2

: castrated sense 1a

I've noticed that my altered cats and my older cats have more dandruff than the unaltered and younger ones.

—Susie Page

Examples of altered in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Court records show he was also charged with failure to stop at a stop sign or flashing red light, failure to heed to a siren, a window tinting violation, and having a fake or altered tag or registration. — Charlotte Observer, 18 June 2026

Sleep talking, formally called somniloquy, from the Latin somnus (sleep) and loqui (to speak), is one of the most common altered behaviors in human sleep. — Scott Travers, Forbes.com, 14 June 2026

But there's growing anecdotal evidence for how people are experimenting with altered models. — Huo Jingnan, NPR, 31 May 2026

By gaining new traits, these altered organisms might pose a novel invasion threat to Earth, if introduced through the transfer and insecure containment of contaminated samples. — Leonard David, Space.com, 3 June 2026

Word History

Etymology

from past participle of alter

First Known Use

1563, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for altered

• unaltered
• faltered