civilise vs alter

civilise and alter both are verbs.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
civilise	No	No	Yes	No
alter	No	No	Yes	No

As verbs, alter is a hypernym of civilise; that is, alter is a word with a broader meaning than civilise:

Other hypernyms of civilise include change, modify.

civilise (verb)	alter (verb)
raise from a barbaric to a civilized state	remove the ovaries of
teach or refine to be discriminative in taste or judgment	become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence
	cause to change; make different; cause a transformation
	insert words into texts, often falsifying it thereby
	make an alteration to