(n.) A raised structure (as a square or oblong erection of stone or wood) on which sacrifices are offered or incense burned to a deity.
(n.) In the Christian church, a construction of stone, wood, or other material for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist; the communion table.
Example Sentences:
(1) From Africa, the archbishop of Kenya warned "the devil has entered the church", while a few days before the ceremony Robinson received a postcard from England, depicting the high altar of Durham cathedral and bearing the message: "You fornicating, lecherous pig."
(2) In its proposals the MoJ is displaying a callous disregard for the rights of its citizens, as client choice and quality of legal service have been sacrificed on the altar of price competition.
(3) Because of course nothing is more destructive of the sanctity of his own vocation than the suggestion that we simply don't need this kind of conservation – if that's what it really is – at all; that on the contrary, the entire "relaunch" is simply the bastard offspring of an orgiastic union between Mammon and science, consummated on the Stonehenge altar stone and observed by the fee-paying public.
(4) He thought he would be his altar boy but it turned out that Ahmadinejad wanted to be the priest."
(5) From glossy magazines to giant billboards and the celebrity culture we obsessively consume, all kneel at the altar of the airbrushed.
(6) His bedridden mother stumbled to her feet Tuesday to pray at the altar set up where he slept.
(7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest People pray in front of an altar especially set up Tama’s funeral in Kinokawa City, Wakayama prefecture.
(8) During the original trial, much emphasis was placed on the blasphemy of the women doing their dance right in front of the altar.
(9) The volte face was a result of Russian blackmail, the Lithuanian president's office said as senior officials in Brussels said Yanukovych was sacrificing the hopes and wishes of most of his countrymen on the altar of Russian money and contracts.
(10) Because by then I had learned, rubbing polish into an altar, that active citizenship is essential for any functioning democracy.
(11) Economics is thus humiliated on the altar of politics, and principle is sacrificed to expediency.
(12) Dr David Petts, a lecturer in archaeology at Durham University, said: "We found the Binchester head close to where a small Roman altar was found two years ago.
(13) How dangerously flimsy would one's marriage have to be before it felt threatened by other couples signing a different piece of paper – or, indeed, by a same sex couple following you to the altar?
(14) If a rock group invaded Westminster Abbey and gravely insulted a religious or ethnic minority before the high altar, we all know that ministers would howl for "exemplary punishment" and judges would oblige.
(15) The temple originally had a sunken nave flanked by seven symbolic pairs of pillars leading to the altar, a ritual well and raised seating on either side.
(16) In a country where voters do not want to sacrifice social welfare to the altar of austerity, analysts warn none of the main candidates are going far enough to slash spending.
(17) Though the Queen will not wear St Edward's crown, the heavy gold crown first used for Charles II's coronation, at Tuesday's service, it will be brought from its home at the Tower of London to rest on the abbey's high altar, along with the Ampulla, the hollow gold eagle from which oil was poured to anoint her in 1953.
(18) When the Dalai Lama came to collect his cheque at a ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral, eight Buddhist monks sat chanting in front of the high altar as the nave filled up.
(19) Dominique Venner , 78, a far-right essayist and historian took his life in front of the altar at Notre Dame on Tuesday after writing a blog condemning France's recently passed law allowing same-sex marriage and adoption.
(20) "Don't tell me that this Compeyson is the man who left Miss Havisham at the altar, that he is now searching for you in London, and that you are actually Estella's father."
Alter
Definition:
(v. t.) To make otherwise; to change in some respect, either partially or wholly; to vary; to modify.
(v. t.) To agitate; to affect mentally.
(v. t.) To geld.
(v. i.) To become, in some respects, different; to vary; to change; as, the weather alters almost daily; rocks or minerals alter by exposure.
Example Sentences:
(1) Herpesviruses such as EBV, HSV, and human herpes virus-6 (HHV-6) have a marked tropism for cells of the immune system and therefore infection by these viruses may result in alterations of immune functions, leading at times to a state of immunosuppression.
(2) The process of sequence rearrangement appears to be a significant part of the evolution of the genome and may have a much greater effect on the evolution of the phenotype than sequence alteration by base substitution.
(3) The various evocational changes appear to form sets of interconnected systems and this complex network seems to embody some plasticity since it has been possible to suppress experimentally some of the most universal evocational events or alter their temporal order without impairing evocation itself.
(4) When chimeric animals were subjected to a lethal challenge of endotoxin, their response was markedly altered by the transferred lymphoid cells.
(5) Morphological alterations in the lungs of pheasants after prolonged high-dosage administration of bleomycin sulfate were studied by light and electron microscopy.
(6) Incubation with IFN alpha or IFN gamma for 24 h resulted in only modest cytokinetic alterations, and they did not modify the effects of FUra.
(7) We report a series of experiments designed to determine if agents and conditions that have been reported to alter sodium reabsorption, Na-K-ATPase activity or cellular structure in the rat distal nephron might also regulate the density or affinity of binding of 3H-metolazone to the putative thiazide receptor in the distal nephron.
(8) In dorsoventral (DV) reversed wings at both shoulder or flank level, the motor axons do not alter their course as they enter the graft.
(9) Neither spermidine nor spermine (0.5 mM) significantly altered [Ca2+]i.
(10) In addition to the changes associated with blood group A, we also found a decrease in sugar content, alterations in other antigens, and changes in the levels of several glycosyltransferases in cancerous tissues.
(11) When the concentration of thrombin or fibrinogen was altered systematically, mu T and mup were found to mirror each other except when the fibrinogen concentration was increased at low thrombin concentrations.
(12) Arteries treated with atrial natriuretic peptide showed no alterations in relaxation or cGMP content after incubation with pertussis toxin.
(13) These results could be explained by altered tissue blood flow and a decreased metabolic capacity of the liver in obese subjects.
(14) The sequential histopathologic alterations in femorotibial joints of partial meniscectomized male and female guinea pigs were evaluated at 1, 2, 3, 6, and 12 weeks post-surgery.
(15) However, survival was closely related to the severity of the illness at the time of randomization and was not altered by shunting.
(16) Brain damage may be followed by a number of dynamic events including reactive synaptogenesis, rerouting of axons to unusual locations and altered axon retraction processes.
(17) Since the advance and return of sperm inside the tubes could facilitate the interaction of sperm with secretions participating in its maturation, the persistent infertility after vasectomy could be related to the contractile alteration that follows the excessive tubal distention.
(18) Sixteen patients (27%) manifested anomalies of the urinary tract: 12 had markedly altered kidneys, 8 of which were unilateral and ipsilateral to the diaphragmatic defect.
(19) Corticosterone (4 x 10(-5) M) did not alter the stimulation-evoked 3H-overflow at 1-30 Hz.
(20) The results show that the presence of histones does not alter the bimodal DNA binding process.