different between contrariety vs variance

English

Alternative forms

• contrarietie (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle French contrariété, from Late Latin contrarietas, from contrarius, from contra (“against”). Compare contrary.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /k?nt???????ti/

Noun

contrariety (countable and uncountable, plural contrarieties)

1. Opposition or contrariness; cross-purposes, marked contrast.
   • 1759, Laurence Sterne, The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Penguin 2003, p.61:

     This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of many a fraternal squabble.

   • 2011, Tim Blanning, "The reinvention of the night", Times Literary Supplement, 21 Sep.:

     At the heart of his argument is the contrariety between day and night, light and dark.

English

Alternative forms

• variaunce (obsolete)
• var (abbreviation)

Etymology

From Middle English variance, variaunce, from Old French variance or directly from Anglo-Latin variaunce, veriaunce, wariaunce; all from Latin variantia.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?v???i.?ns/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?væ?i.?nts/ (Mary–marry–merry distinction)
• (US) IPA^(key): /?v??i.?nts/ (Mary–marry–merry merger)

Noun

variance (countable and uncountable, plural variances)

1. The act of varying or the state of being variable.
2. A difference between what is expected and what is observed; deviation.
3. The state of differing or being in conflict.
4. An official permit to do something that is ordinarily forbidden by regulations.
5. (law) A discrepancy between two legal documents.
6. (law) A departure from a cause of action originally in a complaint.
8. (statistics) The second central moment in probability.
9. (physics, chemistry, biology) The number of degrees of freedom in a system.
10. (computing, programming) Covariance and contravariance generally.

    Depending on the variance of the type constructor, the subtyping relation of the simple types may be either preserved, reversed, or ignored for the respective complex types.

Derived terms

Translations

French

Etymology

From Latin variantia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /va.?j??s/
• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

variance f (plural variances)

1. variance

Further reading

• “variance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).