variant

English

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variant

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• variaunt (obsolete)

Etymology

Recorded since c.1380, from Old French variant, from Latin variāns, the present active participle of variō (“to change”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: vâr'ē-ənt, IPA^(key): /ˈvɛəɹi.ənt/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈvæɹi.ənt/, /ˈvɛɹi.ənt/

Adjective

variant (comparative more variant, superlative most variant)

1. Showing variety, diverse.
2. Showing deviation or disagreement.
3. (obsolete) Variable.
4. (programming) Covariant and/or contravariant.

Derived terms

• time-variant

Translations

showing variety, diverse

Bulgarian: различен (bg) (različen) Czech: různý (cs) Dutch: gevariëerd, verscheiden (nl) Finnish: vaihteleva (fi) Georgian: სხვადასხვა (sxvadasxva), სხვადასხვანაირი (sxvadasxvanairi) Hebrew: מגוון m (meguván) Portuguese: variante (pt) f

showing deviation or disagreement

Bulgarian: различаващ се (različavašt se) Czech: rozdílný (cs) Dutch: afwijkend (nl) Finnish: poikkeava (fi) Galician: variante (gl) f Georgian: განსხვავებული (gansxvavebuli), არამსგავსი (aramsgavsi) Hebrew: מתבדל m (mitbadél) Polish: odbiegający Portuguese: variante (pt) f Spanish: variante (es) (law)

variable — see variable

Noun

variant (plural variants)

1. Something that is slightly different from a type or norm.

   All breeds of dog are variants of the species “Canis lupus familiaris”.

2. (genetics) A different sequence of a gene (locus).
   • 2022 January 12, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Emergency timetables as absences surge due to COVID”, in RAIL, number 948, page 6:

     Most train operators have reduced services with emergency timetables, as they struggle to cope with a rapid increase in staff absences due to the Omicron variant of COVID.

3. (programming) A variable that can hold any of various unrelated data types.
4. (linguistics, lexicography) One of a set of words or other linguistic forms that conveys the same meaning or serves the same function.

   The word "kerosine" is a variant of “kerosene”.

   • 2012, James Lambert, “Beyond Hobson-Jobson: A new lexicography for Indian English”, in World Englishes‎, page 297:

     The "Terms" number is the total number of words and lexical phrases, including sub-headwords and other nested lexical items, but exclusive of variants.

   • 2014, Kimberly Geeslin, Avizia Yim Long, Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition‎, page 27:

     Each member of this group of two or more forms is called a variant. [...] In this case ‘-in’ and ‘-ing’ are variants of the sociolinguistic variable -ing.

Derived terms

• Alpha variant
• Beta variant
• biovariant
• bivariant
• copy-number variant
• delta variant
• Delta variant
• epivariant
• Epsilon variant
• equivariant
• Eta variant
• Gamma variant
• genovariant
• glycovariant
• heterovariant
• immunovariant
• invariant
• Iota variant
• isovariant
• Kappa variant
• Kraken variant
• Lambda variant
• metavariant
• microvariant
• monovariant
• multivariant
• Mu variant
• neurovariant
• nonvariant
• Omega variant
• Omicron variant
• pathovariant
• pharmacovariant
• polyvariant
• scariant
• serovariant
• splice variant
• subvariant
• Theta variant
• univariant
• unvariant
• variant reading
• Zeta variant
• z-variant

Related terms

• variance
• variation
• vary

Translations

something slightly different

Albanian: variant (sq) m Arabic: اِخْتِلَاف m (iḵtilāf) Armenian: տարբերակ (hy) (tarberak) Azerbaijani: variant (az) Basque: aldaera Belarusian: варыя́нт m (varyjánt) Bulgarian: вариа́нт (bg) m (variánt) Chinese: Mandarin: 變體 / 变体 (zh) (biàntǐ), 異體 / 异体 (zh) (yìtǐ) Czech: obměna f, varianta (cs) f Danish: variant c Dutch: variant (nl) m Esperanto: varianto Estonian: variant (et) Finnish: muunnelma (fi), muunnos (fi), variantti (fi) French: variante (fr) f Georgian: ვარიანტი (varianṭi) German: Variante (de) f Greek: παραλλαγή (el) f (parallagí) Hebrew: חלופה f (khalufá), הגוון m (hegvén) Hindi: please add this translation if you can Hungarian: változat (hu), variáns (hu) Icelandic: afbrigði n Indonesian: varian (id) Italian: variante (it) f Japanese: 変体 (ja) (へんたい, hentai), 変種 (ja) (へんしゅ, henshu) Kazakh: нұсқа (nūsqa) Korean: 변체(變體) (ko) (byeonche), 변종(變種) (ko) (byeonjong) Latin: variāns m Latvian: variants m Lithuanian: variantas m Macedonian: варија́нта f (varijánta) Malay: varian Maori: rerenga, tangongitanga Norwegian: Nynorsk: variant m Polish: odmiana (pl) f, rodzaj (pl) m, wariant (pl) m Portuguese: variante (pt) f Romanian: variantă (ro) f Russian: вариа́нт (ru) m (variánt) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: варѝјанта f, ина̀чица f Roman: varìjanta (sh) f, inàčica f Slovak: obmena f, variant m Slovene: varianta f Spanish: variante (es) f Swedish: variant (sv) c Thai: การเปลี่ยนแปลง (th) (gaan-bplìian-bplɛɛng) Turkish: çeşitlilik (tr), değişim (tr), tenevvü (tr), varyant (tr) Ukrainian: варіа́нт (uk) m (variánt), варіянт m (varijant) Uzbek: variant (uz) Vietnamese: phương án (vi), biến thể (vi)

genetics: different sequence of a gene

Dutch: variant (nl) Finnish: geenimuunnos Hebrew: זן (he) m (zan)

computing: variable that can hold several data types

Finnish: variant-muuttuja Hebrew: וריאנט m (variánt) Polish: wariant (pl) m Swedish: variabel (sv) c

See also

• alternate
• alternative

Anagrams

• nativar