---
title: "BIP39 Word #60: alter — Seed Phrase Mnemonic Word"
url: "https://bip39-phrase.com/bip39-word/alter/"
language: "en"
updated: "2026-10-19T00:00:00+00:00"
---

Word #60 00000111011 

# alter — BIP39 word #60

"**alter**" is word #60 of the 2048 words in the official BIP39 English wordlist, between [also](/bip39-word/also/) and [always](/bip39-word/always/). In a seed phrase it stands for the 11-bit value `00000111011`, decimal index 59\. 

/ˈɔːltə/  · _verb:_ to change something, usually slightly 

[Russian](/ru/ "The BIP39 wordlist with Russian translations"): изменить 

## Binary Representation

Five 1-bits and six 0-bits; 462 of the 2048 indexes have exactly five 1-bits.

One wrong bit turns it into (leftmost bit first):

[manual](/bip39-word/manual/)[electric](/bip39-word/electric/)[cherry](/bip39-word/cherry/)[blast](/bip39-word/blast/)[author](/bip39-word/author/)[address](/bip39-word/address/)[air](/bip39-word/air/)[all](/bip39-word/all/)[among](/bip39-word/among/)[already](/bip39-word/already/)[also](/bip39-word/also/) 

Position

Hex Index

0x03B

4-Letter Prefix

alte

## About "alter" in BIP39

- "alter" has 5 letters, but the first three, **"alt"**, already identify it, because **"al"** also begins 14 other words, among them [alarm](/bip39-word/alarm/), [album](/bip39-word/album/), [alcohol](/bip39-word/alcohol/) and [alert](/bip39-word/alert/). Three letters are enough for only 604 of the 2048 words.
- **"alte"** is unique only within the English list: it also begins altesse in the [French list](/french/), alteza in the [Spanish list](/spanish/), alterno in the [Italian list](/italian/) and alterar in the [Portuguese list](/portuguese/), so a four-letter backup should say which list it uses.
- "alter" appears in one of the 24 official English [test vectors](https://github.com/trezor/python-mnemonic/blob/master/vectors.json) of BIP39: vector #22 (word 3 of 12). Every official vector passes the [checksum checker](/bip39-checksum-checker/), and [How BIP39 works](/how-bip39-works/) shows how the entropy turns into such words.

Official test vector #22

[vessel](/bip39-word/vessel/) [ladder](/bip39-word/ladder/) alter [error](/bip39-word/error/) [federal](/bip39-word/federal/) [sibling](/bip39-word/sibling/) [chat](/bip39-word/chat/) [ability](/bip39-word/ability/) [sun](/bip39-word/sun/) [glass](/bip39-word/glass/) [valve](/bip39-word/valve/) [picture](/bip39-word/picture/) 

## Word #60 in the Other 9 BIP39 Wordlists

[Czech](/czech/) beton 

[French](/french/) agacer 

[Italian](/italian/) allegro 

[Japanese](/japanese/) いきおい 

[Korean](/korean/) 거실 

[Portuguese](/portuguese/) aeronave 

[Spanish](/spanish/) ajuste 

[Traditional Chinese](/chinese-traditional/) 所 

[Simplified Chinese](/chinese-simplified/) 所 

## Similar Words — Check Carefully During Recovery

Swap two neighbouring letters and "alter" becomes [later](/bip39-word/later/), another valid word that is easy to miss when copying a phrase. 

## More BIP39 Words Starting with "A"

[ #56 alone ](/bip39-word/alone/)[ #57 alpha ](/bip39-word/alpha/)[ #58 already ](/bip39-word/already/)[ #59 also ](/bip39-word/also/)[ #61 always ](/bip39-word/always/)[ #62 amateur ](/bip39-word/amateur/)[ #63 amazing ](/bip39-word/amazing/)[ #64 among ](/bip39-word/among/) 

[View all words starting with "A" ](/bip39-words/a/) 

## Seed phrase, key and recovery guides

- [How to Memorize a Seed Phrase: Color, Story and Palace Methods](/seed-phrase-memory/)
- [What Is a Seed Phrase? How a Recovery Phrase Works](/recovery-seed-phrase-guide/)
- [What Is a Bitcoin Address and How Does It Work?](/what-is-a-bitcoin-address/)

[ Full BIP39 Wordlist ](/)