alternate vs surrogate

alternate

noun
  • A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty. 

  • A replacement of equal or greater value or function. 

  • A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means. 

  • That which alternates with something else; vicissitude. 

  • Figures or tinctures that succeed each other by turns. 

verb
  • To vary by turns. 

  • To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly. 

  • To perform an alternation (removal of alternate vertices) on (a polytope or tessellation); to remove vertices (from a face or edge) as part of an alternation. 

  • To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with. 

adj
  • Other; alternative. 

  • Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence 

  • Designating the members in a series, which regularly intervene between the members of another series, as the odd or even numbers of the numerals; every other; every second. 

  • Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly) 

surrogate

noun
  • A substitute (usually of a person, position or role). 

  • A politician or person of influence campaigning for a presidential candidate. 

  • Any of a range of Unicode codepoints which are used in pairs in UTF-16 to represent characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane. 

  • An ersatz good. 

  • A deputy for a bishop in granting licences for marriage. 

  • A person or animal that acts as a substitute for the social or pastoral role of another, such as a surrogate parent. 

  • A judicial officer of limited jurisdiction, who administers matters of probate and intestate succession and, in some cases, adoptions. 

adj
  • Of, concerning, relating to or acting as a substitute. 

verb
  • To replace or substitute something with something else; to appoint a successor. 

How often have the words alternate and surrogate occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )