Alter

What it means

1. 1.

   Dude, man — an address term with no reference to age whatsoever. Older than Digga and slightly more mainstream; plenty of forty-year-olds still say it.

2. 2.

   On its own, a full exclamation of disbelief, exasperation or awe: 'Alter!' does the work of an entire sentence.

Literally: Old one.

Examples with translations

• Alter, lass mich in Ruhe.

  Dude, leave me alone.

• Alter! Hast du die Rechnung gesehen?

  Bloody hell! Have you seen the bill?

Where it comes from

From 'mein Alter', once a jokey way of referring to one's father or husband, generalised into an address term in youth speech from the 1970s onwards. The unrelated exclamation 'alter Schwede' — literally 'old Swede', supposedly from Swedish drill sergeants hired by the Great Elector after the Thirty Years' War — is a separate idiom and is not shortened to 'Alter'.

First attested: 1970s

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

Alta, Alte