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Related to altered: Altered Mental Status

alter ego

1. Another name or identity that one assumes. He's a clean-cut accountant during the week, but on the weekend he indulges in hedonistic pursuits as his alter ego "Jack."
2. A separate or different aspect or element of one's personality, identity, or psyche. For such a quiet woman, she has a rage and temper at times that is like some alter ego.
3. A close, inseparable friend of very similar attitudes and interests. My girlfriend and I are so similar, we are like each other's alter ego.
4. A person who acts as a substitute for or copy of another person; a doppelgänger. Due to his increasingly failing health, the dictator's son has been running the country for the past month, essentially as his alter ego.
See also: alter, ego

circumstances alter cases

Unique circumstances can spur unconventional action. I know offering such a big refund isn't protocol, but it's for the CEO's grandmother, and circumstances alter cases.
See also: alter, case, circumstance

Circumstances alter cases.

Prov. In unusual situations, people are allowed to do unusual things. Cashier: I'm sorry, this store does not accept personal checks. Customer: But I need this medicine, and I don't have any cash. I've shopped at this store for fifteen years. Surely you can trust me this once. Cashier: Well, all right. Circumstances alter cases.
See also: alter, case, Circumstance

change, alter, etc. beyond/out of (all) recogˈnition

change, etc. such a lot that people do not recognize you, it, etc: I went back to Birmingham after 20 years and it had changed beyond all recognition. ♢ She had changed beyond all recognition since I last saw her.
See also: beyond, of, out, recognition
References in periodicals archive ?
In contrast, the altered books created by Kirk and Peterson tend to be simpler, less focused projects that involve lots of collage, painting, pasting and, sometimes, cutting - Kirk points to a heavy hardbound book she created with small "drawers" made out of matchbooks that pull out the sides - but the intent is much the same.
Literary art
1] is misplaced by 1 intercostal space, the morphology of the QRS complex may be altered and ventricular tachycardia could be misinterpreted as supraventricular tachycardia.
Electrocardiographic artifacts
Altered books involves using mixed media such as different types of paint finish, paper work, scraps and fabric to change a book from its original form into something completely different.
Breathing fresh life into your old books
The altered males also failed to form the normal dominance hierarchy.
Fighting styles: gene gives flies his, her conflict moves
The healer goes into an altered state and travels, in his mind, to the place where the soul fragment is hiding, and persuades it to come back and join the rest of the person's spirit.
Indigenous healing: revolving in the natural world: in the beginning, about the only thing that people had to occupy their time was survival, and the only thing they had to help them survive was nature
But the genetically altered crops in the news today are just the first manifestations of a new idea.
Fooling with Mother Nature
Americans may recognize that genetically altered food is nothing unusual.
Seeds of hysteria
Genetically altered corn-farming would force farmers to abandon their traditions, critics claim.
Gene-altered Culture?
As Michael Pollan reports in a recent New York Times Magazine, this potato, the New Leaf Russet Burbank, has been genetically altered to include.
Dr. Frankenstein meets Mr. Potato Head
Altered photos get a similar icon, only this one has a slash through it.
What is truth?
Biotech corn, known as Bt corn, has been altered to resist caterpillars, corn borers and earworms.
Altered Risks
Christison worries that altered crops will lead to resistant strains of insects and "super-weeds.
Second Thoughts
Once the receptor had been altered, dopamine did not signal a nearing reward.
Later
One consequence of trauma is altered immune response, resulting in an inability to fight infection.
Preventing aspiration pneumonia in at-risk residents
Ultimately, the committee members were skeptical of the necessity of a new rule and felt that Rule 901 "was flexible enough to allow the judge to exercise discretion to assure that digital photographs are authentic and have not been altered.
The admissibility of digital photographs in criminal cases
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