noun
variance
VEH-uh-ree-uhns
noun
1
A difference between what was expected and what actually happened.
"The accountant flagged a variance between the budget and the actual spend."
2
The state of disagreeing or being in conflict.
"The two witnesses' accounts were at variance with each other."
3
Official permission to do something that would normally break a rule or regulation.
"The homeowner applied for a variance to build closer to the property line than zoning allows."
4
In statistics, a measure of how spread out a set of values is, calculated as the square of the standard deviation.
"A low variance means most of the data points sit close to the average."
How to Use Variance
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishVariance is a gap between things — between plan and reality, between two accounts, or, in statistics, a measure of how much data spreads out.
Common pairings
at variance with
zoning variance
statistical variance
Word Forms
variances plural
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Etymology
From Old French variance, ultimately from Latin variantia, related to variare, "to change."