altar

From Middle English alter, from Old English alter, taken from Latin altare (“altar”), probably related to adolere (“burn”); thus "burning place", influenced by altus (“high”). Displaced native Middle English wēved.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒl.tə/, /ˈɔːl.tə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɔl.tɚ/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɑl.tɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒltə(ɹ), -ɔːltə(ɹ)
• Homophone: alter
• Hyphenation: al‧tar

altar (plural altars)

1. A table or similar flat-topped structure used for religious rites.
   • c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 9–14:

     To hawke, or els to hunt
     From the auter to the funt,
     Wyth cry unreverent,
     Before the sacrament,
     Wythin the holy church bowndis,
     That of our fayth the grownd is.

2. (informal) A raised area around an altar in a church; the sanctuary.
3. (figurative) Any (real or notional) place where something is worshipped or sacrificed to.
   • 2000, Alain Renaut, M. B. De Bevoise, Era of the Individual: A Contribution to a History of Subjectivity:

     […] now marking the end of ascetic rationalism, the monadology no longer implied a sacrifice of individuality on the altar of rationality.

• → Maori: āta

• artal, ratal, talar

Inherited from Latin altāre.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [əlˈta]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [alˈtaɾ]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -a(ɾ)

altar m (plural altars)

1. altar

• “altar” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Inherited from Spanish altar.

altár

1. altar

From Middle High German alter, altære, from Old High German altāri, from Latin altāre. Cognate with German Altar.

altar m (uncountable)

1. (Sette Comuni) altar

• “altar” in Martalar, Umberto Martello, Bellotto, Alfonso (1974) Dizionario della lingua Cimbra dei Sette Communi vicentini, 1st edition, Roana, Italy: Instituto di Cultura Cimbra A. Dal Pozzo

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

altar (genitive [please provide], partitive [please provide])

1. altar

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• “altar”, in [EKSS] Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009
• “altar”, in [ÕS] Eesti õigekeelsussõnaraamat ÕS 2018 [Estonian Spelling Dictionary] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2018, →ISBN
• altar in Sõnaveeb (Eesti Keele Instituut)

From Old Norse altari, from Old Saxon altari, from Latin altare (“altar”), cognate with Danish alter (“altar”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈal̥.taɹ/

altar n (genitive singular altars, plural altar)

1. altar

From Old Galician-Portuguese altar (13th century, Cantigas de Santa Maria), from Latin altāre.

• IPA^(key): /alˈtaɾ/

altar m (plural altares)

1. altar

   Synonym: ara

   • 1370, Ramón Lorenzo, editor, Crónica troiana, A Coruña: Fundación Barrié, page 660:

     et talloulle a cabeça dentro ẽno tẽplo, ante o altar.

     and he cut his head inside, in the temple, before the altar.

• altar maior

• Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, Ana Isabel Boullón Agrelo (2006–2022) “altar”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “altar”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “altar”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega

Borrowed from Dutch altaar, from Latin altāre.

• IPA^(key): /ˈaltar/
• Rhymes: -tar, -ar, -r
• Hyphenation: al‧tar

altar (first-person possessive altarku, second-person possessive altarmu, third-person possessive altarnya)

1. mass offering table
2. mazbah (sacrificial place)
3. (nautical term) a ladder on a ship's dock used to get up and down to and from the dock floor

• “altar” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

• IPA^(key): [ˈal̪ˠt̪ˠəɾˠ]

altar

1. present indicative autonomous of alt
2. imperative autonomous of alt
3. present subjunctive autonomous of alt

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈal.tar/, [ˈäɫ̪t̪är]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈal.tar/, [ˈäl̪t̪är]

altar n (genitive altāris); third declension

1. Alternative form of altāre

In pre-Classical and Classical Latin, this noun only occurs in the plural as a plurale tantum.

Third-declension noun (neuter, “pure” i-stem).

See altāre.

• “altar”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “altar”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎^[1]

• IPA^(key): /alˈtɑːr/ (Milanese)

altar m (plural altar)

1. altar

altar m (plural altaryn)

1. (religion) altar

altar n

1. form removed by a 1984 spelling decision; superseded by alter

From late Old Norse altari, from Old Saxon altari, itself taken from Latin altāre (“altar”).

• alter
• altari (dialectal)

altar n (definite singular altaret, indefinite plural altar, definite plural altara)

1. an altar

altar m

1. indefinite plural of alt

• “altar” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Latin altāre (“altar for burnt offerings”). Cf. also outeiro.

• IPA^(key): /al.ˈtaɾ/

altar m (plural altares)

1. altar (flat structure used for religious rites)
   • 13th century CE, Alfonso X of Castile, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Códice de los músicos, cantiga 7 (facsimile):

     Eſta e como ſanta Maria liurou a Abadeſſa prenne q̇ adormecera anto ſeu Altar chorando.

     This one is about how Holy Mary acquitted the pregnant abbess who had fallen asleep crying in front of her altar.

• Galician: altar
• Portuguese: altar

From Proto-Germanic *aldrą, whence also Old English ealdor, Old Norse aldr.

altar n

1. age

• gialtar

• Middle High German: alter
  • Alemannic German: Altar
  • Bavarian: Ålter, Oiter
  • German: Alter, Alda, Alla
    • → Luxembourgish: Alter
  • Yiddish: אַלטער (alter)

From Old Galician-Portuguese altar, from Latin altāre (“altar for burnt offerings”). Cf. also Portuguese outeiro.

altar m (plural altares)

1. altar (flat structure used for religious rites)

• altariu — dated, rare

Inherited from Latin altārium or altār, with the plural deriving from altāria. Compare oltar, a rare and dated variant which derives from the same source via a Slavic intermediary.

• IPA^(key): /alˈtar/

altar n (plural altare)

1. altar

   Synonym: pristol

2. communion table
3. chancel
4. shrine, sanctuary

   Synonym: sanctuar

• altar in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)

Inherited from Old Spanish altar (attested as far back as the Cantar de Mio Cid^[1]), from Latin altāre. See also otero.

• IPA^(key): /alˈtaɾ/ [al̪ˈt̪aɾ]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: al‧tar

altar m (plural altares)

1. altar (a table used for religious rites)
2. stone that separates the firebox from the hearth in reverberatory furnaces

• Chavacano: altar

• “altar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28

Borrowed from Spanish altar, from Latin altāre. Doublet of alta.

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ʔalˈtaɾ/ [ʔɐlˈt̪aɾ]
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: al‧tar

altár (Baybayin spelling ᜀᜎ᜔ᜆᜇ᜔)

1. altar (a table used for religious rites)

   Synonyms: dalanginan, dambana, alta

• “altar”, in Pambansang Diksiyonaryo | Diksiyonaryo.ph, Manila, 2018
• San Buena Ventura, Fr. Pedro de (1613) Juan de Silva, editor, Vocabulario de lengua tagala: El romance castellano puesto primero‎^[2], La Noble Villa de Pila, page 47: “Altar) Altar (pc) C. de Igleſia v de otro lugar”