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View synonyms for variant

variant

[ vair-ee-uhnt ]

adjective

  1. tending to change or alter; exhibiting variety or diversity; varying:

    variant shades of color.

  2. not agreeing or conforming; differing, especially from something of the same general kind.
  3. not definitive, as a version of part of a text; different; alternative:

    a variant reading.

  4. not universally accepted.


noun

  1. a person or thing that varies.
  2. a different spelling, pronunciation, or form of the same word:

    “Vehemency” is a variant of “vehemence.”

  3. Microbiology, Pathology. a form of a virus, bacterium, or other microorganism that arises from a strain of the microorganism when a mutation changes a small part of the strain’s genetic code. Compare strain 2( def 5 ).

variant

/ ˈvɛərɪənt /

adjective

  1. liable to or displaying variation
  2. differing from a standard or type

    a variant spelling

  3. obsolete.
    not constant; fickle
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


noun

  1. something that differs from a standard or type
  2. statistics another word for variate
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Other Words From

  • non·var·i·ant adjective noun
  • un·var·i·ant adjective
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Word History and Origins

Origin of variant1

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English variaunt(e), variant(e) “undergoing change, tending to change, changeable,” from Old French, from Latin variant-, stem of variāns, present participle of variāre “to mark or adorn with different colors”; various; -ant
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Word History and Origins

Origin of variant1

C14: via Old French from Latin variāns, from variāre to diversify, from varius various
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Example Sentences

Tadge Juechter will remain executive chief engineer for Global Corvette and will continue to lead the team as new variants hit the market.

A smattering of all water molecules on Earth contain a heavy variant of hydrogen known as deuterium.

About a quarter of elite controllers have genetic variants in key immune system genes that may help them get a handle on the virus, says Joseph Wong, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Not all close variants are poor matches, but many do see meaningfully different performance than true exact and phrase matches on the non-brand side.

For example, a promising pro-youth gene variant can be genetically edited into mice using CRISPR or some other tool.

There we were to watch a game of buzkashi, a much more violent variant of polo played by Uzbeks and other Afghans.

All of these will end with some variant of the following: Ms. Pembreteaux laughed, then shrugged.

Many of the gender-variant male types were stigmatized; being regarded as women was hardly an elevation in social status.

Instead, Chris indulged in the MSNBC variant of epistemic closure.

Now she is back with a new variant today, but this one actually makes more sense.

On the other hand, no continental variant appears to contain the sea-maiden episodes.

I do not think that Lancelot was ab origine the hero of a variant of this popular and widely-spread folk-tale.

Minor printer's errors have been corrected, but variant and irregular spellings are retained.

He indicated one of the variant-tapes being slowly reversed across the relays.

Where several variant spellings were used, the most prevalent version was use to standardize them.

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variancevariant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease