variety

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• variëty (rare)

Etymology

From French varieté, from Latin varietās (“difference, diversity”), from varius (“different, various”); see various.

Pronunciation

• enPR: və-rī'ə-ti, IPA^(key): /vəˈraɪ.ə.ti/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

variety (plural varieties)

1. A specific variation of something.
2. A number of different things.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, 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”, 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.

3. A state of constant change.
4. (taxonomy) A rank in a taxonomic classification, below species and subspecies.
5. (cybernetics) The total number of distinct states of a system.
6. (cybernetics) Logarithm of the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system.
7. (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.
8. (algebra, esp. universal algebra) The class of all algebraic structures of a given signature satisfying a given set of identities.

Synonyms

• (algebra, esp. universal algebra): equational variety

Hyponyms

• cultivar

Derived terms

• Abelian variety
• antivariety
• grape variety
• variety store
• variety show
• algebraic variety
• affine variety
• projective variety
• quasiprojective variety
• quasivariety

Related terms

• variant
• variation
• varietal
• variegate
• various
• vary

Translations

variation of something

• Arabic: اختلاف m (ikhtilaaf)
• Catalan: varietat (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 品種 (zh), 品种 (zh) (pǐnzhǒng), 變種, 变种 (zh) (biànzhǒng)

• Dutch: verscheidenheid (nl) f
• Finnish: muunnos, laji (fi), tyyppi (fi)
• French: variété (fr) f
• German: Sorte (de) f
• Irish: sórt m
• Italian: varietà (it) f

• Khmer: ប្រភេទ (km) (prɑpʰeit)
• Latin: varietās f
• Mazanderani: جور
• Persian: اختلاف (fa) (extelâf)
• Polish: rodzaj (pl) m
• Portuguese: variedade (pt) f
• Romanian: varietate (ro) f, sort (ro) n, fel (ro) n, sortiment (ro) n
• Russian: сорт (ru) m (sort), вид (ru) m (vid), разновидность (ru) n (raznovídnost')
• Scottish Gaelic: caochladh m
• Spanish: variedad (es) f

state of constant change

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 多樣性 (zh), 多样性 (zh) (duōyàngxìng)

• Finnish: muutos (fi), muutostila
• French: variété (fr) f

• German: Vielfältigkeit f
• Japanese: 多様性 (たようせい, tayōsei)
• Portuguese: variação (pt) f
• Russian: разнообразие (ru) n (raznoobrázije)
• Spanish: variedad (es) f

rank in a taxonomic classification

• Catalan: varietat (ca) f
• Czech: odrůda (cs) f, varieta f
• Finnish: muunnos
• Italian: varietà (it) f

• Polish: odmiana (pl) f
• Portuguese: variedade (pt) f
• Romanian: varietate (ro) f
• Russian: вид (ru) m (vid), разновидность (ru) f (raznovídnost')

cybernetics: 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: term used for a specific form of a language

• Finnish: kielimuoto, muoto (fi)

• Portuguese: variedade (pt) f

algebra: class of algebraic structures

See also

• species
• (cybernetics: logarithm): information entropy

External links

• variety in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• variety in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911