variety
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- variëty (rare)
Etymology[edit]
From Middle French varieté, from Latin varietās (“difference, diversity”), from varius (“different, various”); see various.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
variety (countable and uncountable, plural varieties)
- The quality of being varied; diversity.
- 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 34:
- The teeth of sharks, for all their variety, share one characteristic, and that is the way in which they are attached.
- Variety is the spice of life.
- Antonym: sameness
- A specific variation of something.
- A number of different things.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:
- One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.
- 2013 January 1, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 64:
- In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.” His quest leads him around the world to study a variety of suspect zoonoses—animal-hosted pathogens that infect humans.
- Synonyms: array, assortment
- A state of constant change.
- (taxonomy) A rank in a taxonomic classification, below species and subspecies.
- (cybernetics) The total number of distinct states of a system.
- (cybernetics) Logarithm of the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system.
- (linguistics) A term used for a specific form of a language, neutral to whether that form is a dialect, accent, register, etc. and to its prestige level.
- 2014, James Lambert, “Diachronic stability in Indian English lexis”, in World Englishes, page 114:
- The mere existence of a dictionary of a certain variety of English does not automatically confer acceptance of that variety.
- (algebra, esp. universal algebra) The class of all algebraic structures of a given signature satisfying a given set of identities.
- The kind of theatrical entertainment given in variety shows.
- The production of, or performance in, variety shows.
Synonyms[edit]
- (quality of being varied): See also Thesaurus:nonuniformity
- (algebra, esp. universal algebra): equational variety
Hyponyms[edit]
- (specific variation of something): cultivar
Derived terms[edit]
Derived terms
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
quality of being varied, diversity
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variation of something
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state of constant change
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rank in a taxonomic classification
cybernetics: total number of distinct states of a system
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cybernetics: logarithm of the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system
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linguistics: term used for a specific form of a language
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algebra: class of algebraic structures
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See also[edit]
- species
- (cybernetics: logarithm): information entropy
Further reading[edit]
- variety in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- variety in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
Categories:
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 4-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English words following the I before E except after C rule
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Taxonomy
- en:Cybernetics
- en:Linguistics
- en:Algebra
- en:Systems theory
