variance
Americannoun
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the state, quality, or fact of being variable, divergent, different, or anomalous.
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an instance of varying; difference; discrepancy.
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Also called mean square deviation. Statistics. the square of the standard deviation.
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Physics, Chemistry. the number of degrees of freedom of a system.
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Law.
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a difference or discrepancy, as between two statements or documents in law that should agree.
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a departure from the cause of action originally stated in the complaint.
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an official permit to do something normally forbidden by regulations, especially by building in a way or for a purpose normally forbidden by a zoning law or a building code.
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a disagreement, dispute, or quarrel.
idioms
noun
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the act of varying or the quality, state, or degree of being divergent; discrepancy
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an instance of diverging; dissension
our variance on this matter should not affect our friendship
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(often foll by with) (of facts, etc) not in accord; conflicting
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(of persons) in a state of dissension
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statistics a measure of dispersion obtained by taking the mean of the squared deviations of the observed values from their mean in a frequency distribution
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a difference or discrepancy between two steps in a legal proceeding, esp between a statement in a pleading and the evidence given to support it
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(in the US and Canada) a licence or authority issued by the board of variance to contravene the usual rule, esp to build contrary to the provision of a zoning code
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chem the number of degrees of freedom of a system, used in the phase rule
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accounting the difference between actual and standard costs of production
Other Word Forms
- nonvariance noun
- self-variance noun
Etymology
Origin of variance
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Latin variantia, from vari(āre) “to vary” ( vary ) + -antia -ance
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lieberman sees a significant variance in the quality of the management teams in the sector.
From Barron's
He adds that there was a reassuring positive variance in its life and health unit but that renewals look weak.
Test cricket is a rich tapestry - no other sport has such a variance in conditions holding such influence over the outcome.
From BBC
Performance and reliability: Distributed GPU networks face inherent challenges with performance variance, latency and quality control.
From MarketWatch
The picture of Russia emerging triumphant and legitimized from such a deal is, ahem, at variance with reality.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
