discrepancy

English

WOTD – 6 August 2006

Alternative forms

• discrepance (archaic)

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁

Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is-

Proto-Italic *dis-

Latin dis-

Latin crepō

Latin discrepō

Latin discrepāns

Proto-Indo-European *-yós

Proto-Italic *-ios

Old Latin -ios

Latin -ius

Latin -ia

Latin discrepantiabor.

English discrepancy

Borrowed from Latin discrepantia, from discrepans, from discrepō, from crepō. By surface analysis, discrepant +‎ -cy. See also discrepant.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /dɪˈskɹɛpənsi/

  • Audio (California):

    (file)

  • Audio (Texas):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /dɪˈskɹepənsi/

  • Audio (Queensland):

    (file)

• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /dəˈskɹepənsi/
• (Indic) IPA^(key): /ˈɖɪskrəpənsi/

Noun

discrepancy (countable and uncountable, plural discrepancies)

1. An inconsistency between facts or sentiments.

   They found a discrepancy between the first set of test results and the second, and they're still trying to figure out why.

   • 1981, John Updike, Rabbit is Rich:

     Still, there is pilferage, mysterious discrepancies eating into the percentages.

   • 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly‎^[1], volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 6 June 2019, page 18:

     WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, […]. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.

2. The state or quality of being discrepant.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:discrepancy.

Synonyms

• (inconsistency): conflict, contrariety, deviation, difference, disagreement, disparity, divergence, incompatibility, inconsistency, mismatch, variance, variation, dissimilarity, anomaly
• (discrepant state): discordance, anomalous

Derived terms

• nondiscrepancy
• self-discrepancy

Translations

inconsistency

• Arabic: تَضَارُب m (taḍārub), تَنَاقُض (ar) m (tanāquḍ)
• Bulgarian: несъотве́тствие (bg) n (nesǎotvétstvie), несъгла́сие (bg) n (nesǎglásie)
• Catalan: discrepància f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 差異 / 差异 (zh) (chāyì)

• Czech: rozpor (cs) m, nesrovnalost f
• Danish: diskrepans c
• Dutch: discrepantie (nl) f
• Esperanto: malakordo
• Finnish: epäjohdonmukaisuus (fi), eroavuus (fi)
• French: incohérence (fr) f
• German: Diskrepanz (de) f, Widerspruch (de), Unstimmigkeit (de), Abweichung (de)
• Greek: ασυμφωνία (el) f (asymfonía)
• Hungarian: ellentmondás (hu)
• Icelandic: misræmi (is) n, ósamræmi n
• Indonesian: kesenjangan (id)
• Japanese: 違い (ja) (ちがい, chigai), 食い違い (ja) (くいちがい, kuichigai), 不一致 (ja) (ふいっち, fuitchi)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: nakokî (ku) f, nelihevî (ku) f, newekhevî (ku) f

• Latin: discrepantia f
• Plautdietsch: Fäla m
• Polish: rozbieżność (pl)
• Portuguese: discrepância (pt) f
• Russian: расхожде́ние (ru) n (rasxoždénije), разногла́сие (ru) n (raznoglásije)
• Scottish Gaelic: eadar-dhealachadh m
• Serbo-Croatian: raskorak (sh) m
• Slovak: diskrepancia f, rozpor m, nezrovnalosť f
• Spanish: discrepancia (es) f
• Swedish: diskrepans (sv) c
• Tagalog: biso
• Ukrainian: розбі́жність f (rozbížnistʹ)

discrepant state

• Bulgarian: несъгла́сие (bg) n (nesǎglásie), разли́чие (bg) n (razlíčie)
• Dutch: discrepantie (nl) f
• Finnish: epäjohdonmukaisuus (fi)
• Indonesian: kesenjangan (id)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: nakokî (ku) f, nelihevî (ku) f, newekhevî (ku) f

• Portuguese: discrepância (pt) f
• Russian: разли́чие (ru) n (razlíčije), несоотве́тствие (ru) n (nesootvétstvije)