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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

variance.

The act of varying or the state of being variable.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈvɛə.ɹi.əns/Received-Pronunciation/ˈvɛː.ɹi.əns/Received-Pronunciation/ˈvæɹ.i.əns/US/ˈvɛɹ.i.əns/
  1. The act of varying or the state of being variable.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A difference between what is expected and what is observed; deviation.

    countable · uncountable
  3. The state of differing or being in conflict.

    countable · uncountable
  4. An official permit to do something that is ordinarily forbidden by regulations.

    countable · uncountable
  5. A discrepancy between two legal documents.

    countable · uncountable
  6. A departure from a cause of action originally in a complaint.

    countable · uncountable
  7. The second central moment in probability; the square of the standard deviation.

    countable · uncountable
  8. The number of degrees of freedom in a system.

    countable · uncountable
  9. Covariance and contravariance generally.

    countable · uncountable
    Depending on the variance of the type constructor, the subtyping relation of the simple types may be either preserved, reversed, or ignored for the respective complex types.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English variance, variaunce, equivalent to vary + -ance, from Old French variance or directly from Anglo-Latin variaunce, veriaunce, wariaunce; all from Latin variantia.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.