variant

American  

[vair-ee-uhnt] / ˈvɛər i ənt /

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.

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noun

• variants
  plural

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.

variant British  

/ ˈvɛərɪənt /

adjective

1. liable to or displaying variation

2. differing from a standard or type

   a variant spelling

3. obsolete not constant; fickle

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noun

1. something that differs from a standard or type

2. statistics another word for variate

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonvariant
  adjective
• unvariant
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• variants
  plural

Etymology

Origin of variant

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”; cf. various; see -ant

Explanation

A variant is another version of something. You could say chimps and apes and gorillas are variants in the primate family. Words often have variants, spellings that vary from region to region or country to country. The British colour and the American color are variants. When a movie or TV show is remade or casts a new actor — like with the string of James Bonds — you could call those movies variants. Where there are variants, there is variety — things aren't all the same.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

variant variants

"The fact this outbreak variant was able to spread to so many young people was due to the social environment, a place where lots of close social mixing takes place."

From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026

This exchange created a new strain or variant that then spread between clubbers and caused severe illness.

From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026

Manipulating gene expression allowed the researchers to test cause and effect rather than simply observe that a genetic variant happened to occur in AnWj negative people.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026

“The Seeker variant, combined with the increased use of jet-powered Geran series is proving far more effective than previous models,” said Darren DelSignore, general manager at DroneSec.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

As famine raged through the finch world, this gross-beaked variant survived by feeding on hard seeds.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

It is sold in one color, mint green, and comes in two variants.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

The number of model variants will also be streamlined to boost profitability.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026

Google DeepMind on Tuesday introduced the AlphaGenome Atlas, a dataset of predictions for the effects of every possible single-letter change across the human genome—roughly 9 billion variants in total.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026

Meanwhile, variants associated with openness to experience and extraversion were connected with a greater tendency to be a night owl.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 8, 2026

Biologists would later term these variants alleles, from the Greek word allos—loosely referring to two different subtypes of the same general kind.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• modification
• variation