VARIANCE Definition & Meaning

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variance

[ vair-ee-uhns ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

the state, quality, or fact of being variable, divergent, different, or anomalous.
an instance of varying; difference; discrepancy.
Also called mean square deviation. Statistics. the square of the standard deviation.
Physics, Chemistry. the number of degrees of freedom of a system.
Law.
1. a difference or discrepancy, as between two statements or documents in law that should agree.
2. a departure from the cause of action originally stated in the complaint.
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.
a disagreement, dispute, or quarrel.

variance

/ ˈ��ɛə��ɪə�Բ� /

noun

the act of varying or the quality, state, or degree of being divergent; discrepancy
an instance of diverging; dissension
our variance on this matter should not affect our friendship
at variance
1. often foll by with (of facts, etc) not in accord; conflicting
2. (of persons) in a state of dissension
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
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
(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
chem the number of degrees of freedom of a system, used in the phase rule
accounting the difference between actual and standard costs of production

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Other �y��vlog Forms

�Դǲ�·��i·��Գ�� noun
��-��i·��Գ�� noun

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of variance¹

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Latin variantia, from ��(��) “to vary” ( vary ) + -antia -ance

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Idioms and Phrases

at variance,
1. (of things) in a state of difference or disagreement.
2. (of persons) in a state of controversy or dissension:
  at variance with one's superiors.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

After putting out a call on Reddit and TikTok, she received more than 1,000 responses from fans - and plotted the results on a graph to show the variance in price.

From

But instead of changing the lines on the closure map, the forest service gave him a variance allowing him to operate inside the closed area.

From

“The other story here is that there’s been so much variance in Texas election results in the past decade and it’s not clear what sort of election it’s going to be.”

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But Clark said students should be aware of the great variance among majors — the transfer admission rate for computer science is 5%, for instance, compared with 60%-plus for history, linguistics and philosophy.

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But Leib said he and some other regents became increasingly concerned by the variance in campus approaches.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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