Option vs. Alternative

One of a set of choices that can be made.

The freedom or right to choose.

A contract giving the holder the right to buy or sell an asset at a set strike price; can apply to financial market transactions, or to ordinary transactions for tangible assets such as a residence or automobile.

(graphical user interface) A button on a screen used to select an action (often "menu option").

To purchase an option on something.

Example: ‘The new novel was optioned by the film studio, but they'll probably never decide to make a movie from it.’;

To configure, by setting an option.

The power of choosing; the right of choice or election; an alternative.

Example: ‘There is an option left to the United States of America, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation.’;

The exercise of the power of choice; choice.

Example: ‘Transplantation must proceed from the option of the people, else it sounds like an exile.’;

A wishing; a wish.

A right formerly belonging to an archbishop to select any one dignity or benefice in the gift of a suffragan bishop consecrated or confirmed by him, for bestowal by himself when next vacant; - annulled by Parliament in 1845.

A stipulated privilege, given to a party in a time contract, of demanding its fulfillment on any day within a specified limit; also, the contract giving that privelege; as, an option to buy a stock at a given price; to exercise an option.

the right to buy or sell property at an agreed price; the right is purchased and if it is not exercised by a stated date the money is forfeited

one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen;

Example: ‘what option did I have?’; ‘there no other alternative’; ‘my only choice is to refuse’;

the act of choosing or selecting;

Example: ‘your choice of colors was unfortunate’; ‘you can take your pick’;

a thing that is or may be chosen

Example: ‘choose the cheapest options for supplying energy’;

the freedom or right to choose something

Example: ‘he has no option but to pay up’; ‘she was given the option of resigning or being dismissed’;

a right to buy or sell a particular thing at a specified price within a set time

Example: ‘Columbia Pictures has an option on the script’;

buy or sell an option on

Example: ‘his second script will have been optioned by the time you read this’;

Relating to a choice between two or more possibilities.

Example: ‘an alternative proposition’;

Not traditional, outside the mainstream, underground.

Other; different from something else.

Alternate, reciprocal.

A situation which allows a mutually exclusive choice between two or more possibilities; a choice between two or more possibilities.

One of several mutually exclusive things which can be chosen.

The remaining option; something available after other possibilities have been exhausted.

Offering a choice of two things.

Disjunctive; as, an alternative conjunction.

Alternate; reciprocal.

An offer of two things, one of which may be chosen, but not both; a choice between two things, so that if one is taken, the other must be left.

Example: ‘There is something else than the mere alternative of absolute destruction or unreformed existence.’;

Either of two things or propositions offered to one's choice. Thus when two things offer a choice of one only, the two things are called alternatives.

Example: ‘Having to choose between two alternatives, safety and war, you obstinately prefer the worse.’;

The course of action or the thing offered in place of another.

Example: ‘If this demand is refused the alternative is war.’; ‘With no alternative but death.’;

A choice between more than two things; one of several things offered to choose among.

Example: ‘My decided preference is for the fourth and last of these alternatives.’;

one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen;

Example: ‘what option did I have?’; ‘there no other alternative’; ‘my only choice is to refuse’;

allowing a choice;

Example: ‘an alternative plan’;

necessitating a choice between mutually exclusive possibilities;

Example: ‘`either' and `or' in `either this or that'’;

pertaining to unconventional choices;

Example: ‘an alternative life style’;

(of one or more things) available as another possibility or choice

Example: ‘the various alternative methods for resolving disputes’;

(of two things) mutually exclusive

Example: ‘the facts fit two alternative scenarios’;

relating to activities that depart from or challenge traditional norms

Example: ‘an alternative lifestyle’;

one of two or more available possibilities

Example: ‘audiobooks are an interesting alternative to reading’; ‘she had no alternative but to break the law’;