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variance

noun

Simple meaning

A difference between what is expected and what is observed.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

vehreeuhns

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈvɛɹiəns

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A difference between what is expected and what is observed; deviation.

  2. The act of varying or the state of being variable.

  3. The state of differing or being in conflict.

  4. An official permit to do something that is ordinarily forbidden by regulations.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A difference between what is expected and what is observed; deviation.

Used this way, variance is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use variance

  • “There was significant variance in test scores across the group.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

genetic variancetotal varianceerror variancesample variancepopulation variancevariance analysisprice varianceminimum variance

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • discrepancy

    A difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions.

  • division

    A disagreement; a difference of viewpoint between two sides of an argument.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • variablenounDerived noun

    Something that is likely to vary.

  • variationnounDerived noun

    An instance of change.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • analysis of variancenounCompound term

    A statistical method for making simultaneous comparisons between two or more means.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: difference between what is expected and what is observed

divisionvariation

Antonyms

Sense: difference between what is expected and what is observed

invariance

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.