variance

American  

[vair-ee-uhns] / ˈvɛər i əns /

noun

1. the state, quality, or fact of being variable, divergent, different, or anomalous.

2. an instance of varying; difference; discrepancy.

3. Also called mean square deviation.  Statistics. the square of the standard deviation.

4. Physics, Chemistry. the number of degrees of freedom of a system.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. a disagreement, dispute, or quarrel.

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idioms

1. 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.

variance British  

/ ˈvɛərɪəns /

noun

1. the act of varying or the quality, state, or degree of being divergent; discrepancy

2. an instance of diverging; dissension

   our variance on this matter should not affect our friendship

3. 1. (often foll by with) (of facts, etc) not in accord; conflicting

   2. (of persons) in a state of dissension

4. 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

5. 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

6. (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

7. chem the number of degrees of freedom of a system, used in the phase rule

8. accounting the difference between actual and standard costs of production

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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

Explanation

A change to the norm is called a variance. It suggests a difference or shifting away from the expected or usual, an example being snow in July, which is a variance in the weather of the United States, even in Minnesota. When the word variance is used in a comparison, it is usually preceded by the word "at," as in "Her values were at variance with her actions," meaning the two differed. This makes sense, as the word, first seen in Middle English, comes from the Latin verb variāre, which means "to change." If a contractor needs to go outside the standing building code, he needs to obtain a variance, which is legal permission to make a change from the norm.

Example Sentences

While polling heading into the primary showed a lot of variance, the average converged on Paxton leading the race by about 4 points.

From Slate • Mar. 4, 2026

Lieberman sees a significant variance in the quality of the management teams in the sector.

From Barron's • Feb. 27, 2026

Performance and reliability: Distributed GPU networks face inherent challenges with performance variance, latency and quality control.

From MarketWatch • Dec. 3, 2025

The hope was to become immune to the effect of injury, inconsistency and the natural variance of the postseason.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 22, 2025

He seen he wuz sick—everybody been knowin’ dat for de last longest, and den Ah reckon he heard y’all wuz kind of at variance, so dat wuz his chance.

From "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

Related Words

• deviation
• difference of opinion
• discrepancy
• divergence
• fluctuation