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

Meanwhile, the rest of the industry scrambled to adjust to an altered competitive landscape. —Andy McCullough, New York Times, 18 June 2025

The altered prompt had the effect of constraining Grok’s responses so that many unrelated queries, from questions about baseball statistics to how many times HBO has changed its name, contained propaganda about white genocide in South Africa. —James Foulds, The Conversation, 18 June 2025

In our current reading regime, summarized or altered texts are the exception, not the rule. —Joshua Rothman, New Yorker, 17 June 2025

No illegible, incomplete, forged or altered entries will be accepted. —Sourcing Journal, 12 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

from past participle of alter

First Known Use

1563, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for altered

• unaltered
• faltered