Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having or exhibiting variation; differing.
- adj. Tending or liable to vary; variable.
- adj. Deviating from a standard, usually by only a slight difference.
- n. Something that differs in form only slightly from something else, as a different spelling or pronunciation of the same word.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In biology, a term introduced by Barrande to express a departure from the type of species showing contemporaneous secondary modification of form and surface features, and contrasted with the variety, in which the principal characters of the species are retained accompanied by departures in one or more primary modifications. The distinction is obscure and has not been generally adopted.
- Different; diverse; having a different form or character: as, a variant form or spelling of a word.
- Variable; varying; changing; inconstant.
- Unsettled; restless.
- n. Something that is substantially the same, though in a different form; in ctym., a variant form or spelling of the same original word; in lit, a different reading or spelling.
Wiktionary
- adj. Showing variety, diverse.
- adj. Showing deviation or disagreement.
- adj. obsolete Variable.
- n. Something that is slightly different from a type or norm.
- n. genetics A different sequence of a gene (locus).
- n. computing A variable that can hold any of various unrelated data types.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Varying in form, character, or the like; variable; different; diverse.
- adj. obsolete Changeable; changing; fickle.
- n. Something which differs in form from another thing, though really the same
WordNet 3.0
- n. a variable quantity that is random
- n. something a little different from others of the same type
- adj. exhibiting variation and change
- adj. differing from a norm or standard
- n. (biology) a group of organisms within a species that differ in trivial ways from similar groups
- n. an event that departs from expectations
Etymologies
- Recorded since c.1380, from Old French variant, from Latin variāns, the present active participle of variō ("to change"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin variāns, variant-, present participle of variāre, to vary; see vary. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term variant has been used loosely; other related terminology used is aliasing, sameness, and so forth.”
“It turns out that the government gamed the sales figures; counting each drivetrain variant under the same model separately.”
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Wow, Who Would Have Predicted This?
“Even something like the Thunderbolts #128 Headsman variant is getting $35 in some places.”
“Even older variants, like the Ultimate Spider-Man #1 white variant is worth like three times the price of the standard cover coming in at about $300 a pop.”
“Jessica, that thought about the translation of the subjunctive to be more remote than the habria variant is interesting, especially given the number of times in English we might say “could” or “might” in these situations.”
“For every 10 copies of Red Sonja: Wrath of the Gods #1 ordered, retailers will receive a limited edition virgin variant cover signed by writer Luke Lieberman at no extra cost.”
Red Sonja takes on Loki this February | Major Spoilers - Comic Book Reviews and News
“Next, this variant is easily relatable to “no end of”; there is no “to no end of”.”
“Yet, socialism, particulalry its Marxist variant is an ideology that emphasizes the leading role of the working class or dictatorship of the proletariat.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Competing Explanations for the Oppressive Nature of Socialism
“A fairly common poker variant is to have the Ace be high and low, meaning it can be “better” (higher) in value than the King (as normal), and simultaneously lower than 2.”
Best Poker Hands – For Basic Poker & Most Game Variants | Poker Hands
“There are also single volume editions such as Shorter Christian Prayer (which only contains Lauds and Vespers) or Christian Prayer which includes more of the hours, but in a more inexpensive, single volume edition -- another similar variant is this edition of Christian Prayer (published by Paulist Press) which is better laid out for recitation in my estimation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘variant’.
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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The Bindery
A list of bookbinding terms and phrases, for assembling new or repairing/reassembling old books.
perfect binding, animal glue, spine, textblock, polyvinyl acetate, double-fan adhesi..., board, backing, rounding, bone, book cloth, pasteboard and 270 more...
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MUSIC - jazz
Afro, habanera, pentatonic scale, bop, bebop, jazz, cool jazz, pentatonic, malignment, music genre, jazz musician, syncopate and 437 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Rare Books
Words used in the rare book trade (of which I was once a part). For more about how such books are put together, see hernesheir's excellent The Bindery.
foxing, gilt, headband, bumped, endpaper, leaf, colophon, vellum, laid paper, boards, device, engraving and 168 more...
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GMAT
part of speech, frown, brow, immensely, immense, incomprehensible, toil, concision, concise, proper noun, hyphenated, dash and 190 more...
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implify's Words
gaia, eviscerate, lament, ephemeral, urbane, blight, variant, schadenfreude, hubbub, iteration, feign, hobgoblin and 243 more...
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Rocketeer's Words
defenestrate, shutterbug, antique, periscope, dogma, peculiar, eccentric, banana, apple, pear, cherry, photograph and 189 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1692 more...
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noele's list
vertiginous, verdant, mellifluous, serpentine, verdigris, traject, amaranthine, luminous, phosphorescent, temerous, cerulean, shapeshifter and 531 more...
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4 Color World
Comics!
comic, comic book, comic strip, graphic novel, comix, manga, manhua, manhwa, bande dessinée, panel, gutter, writer and 49 more...
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Rapunzel79's Words
progress, krill, monte, taffies, variant, ma'am, absolute, fourth estate
Tweets
Looking for tweets for variant.
reesetee A copy of a book that varies in some way from the ideal copy. Can refer to binding color, illustrations, and so on. Feb 22, 2007