alias

noun

a false name used to conceal one's identity; an assumed name: The police files indicate that “Smith” is an alias for Simpson.

adverb

at another time; in another place; in other circumstances; otherwise. “Simpson alias Smith” means that Simpson in other circumstances has called himself Smith.

Origin:
1525–35; < Latin aliās (adv.): at another time, otherwise; cf. else

Synonyms
1. nom de guerre; nom de plume, pseudonym.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To alias

Collins

World English Dictionary

alias (ˈeɪlɪəs)

—*adv*
1.	at another time or place known as or named: Dylan, alias Zimmerman

—n , -ases
2.	an assumed name

[C16: from Latin aliās (adv) otherwise, at another time, from alius other]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Relevant Questions

What Is Inter Alia?

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Alias is always a great word to know.

So is bezoar. Does it mean:

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

alias

mid-15c., lit. "otherwise called," from L. alias "at another time, in another way," from alius "(an)other," from PIE *al- "beyond" (cf. Skt. anya "other, different," Avestan anya-, Armenian ail, Gk. allos "another," Goth. aljis "other," O.E. elles "otherwise, else," Mod.Eng.

else). The noun meaning "assumed name" is first recorded c.1600.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

ALIAS definition

ALgorIthmic ASsembly language

alias definition

1. A name, usually short and easy to remember and type, that is translated into another name or string, usually long and difficult to remember or type. Most command interpreters (e.g. Unix's csh) allow the user to define aliases for commands, e.g. "alias l ls -al". These are loaded into memory when the interpreter starts and are expanded without needing to refer to any file.
2. One of several alternative hostnames with the same Internet address. E.g. in the Unix hosts database (/etc/hosts or NIS map) the first field on a line is the Internet address, the next is the official hostname (the "canonical name" or "CNAME"), and any others are aliases.
Hostname aliases often indicate that the host with that alias provides a particular network service such as archie, finger, FTP, or World-Wide Web. The assignment of services to computers can then be changed simply by moving an alias (e.g. www.doc.ic.ac.uk) from one Internet address to another, without the clients needing to be aware of the change.
3. The name used by Apple computer, Inc. for symbolic links when they added them to the System 7 operating system in 1991.
(1997-10-22)
4. Two names (identifiers), usually of local or global variables, that refer to the same resource (memory location) are said to be aliased. Although names introduced in programming languages are typically mapped to different memory locations, aliasing can be introduced by the use of address arithmetic and pointers or language-specific features, like C++ references.
Statically deciding (e.g. via a program analysis executed by a sophisticated compiler) which locations of a program will be aliased at run time is an undecidable problem.
[G. Ramalingam: "The Undecidability of Aliasing", ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), Volume 16, Issue 5, September 1994, Pages: 1467 - 1471, ISSN:0164-0925.]
(2004-09-12)

Example sentences

He used his friend's name as an alias.

When you are done with the alias, simply delete it.

With leads on several new aliases, police intensified the search.

Mackey's alias surfaced in a footnote in a 40-page court document .

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Related Words

handle moniker

moniker

Matching Quote

"The mirror in the hat store is triplicate, so that you see yourself not only head-on but from each side. The appearance that I present to myself in this mirror is that of three police-department photographs showing all possible approaches to Harry DuChamps, alias Harry Duval, alias Harry Duffy, wanted in Rochester for the murder of Nettie Lubitch, age 5."

-Robert Benchley

alias

a·li·as

ALIAS definition

alias definition