different between vagary vs variance

English

Etymology

From Latin vagus (“wandering”).

Pronunciation

• (General American, formerly) IPA^(key): /v?????i/
• (General American, now commonly) IPA^(key): /?ve????i/

Noun

vagary (plural vagaries)

1. An erratic, unpredictable occurrence or action.
   • 1871, Charles Kingsley, At Last: A Christmas In The West Indies, ch. 8:

     It now turns out that the Pitch Lake, like most other things, owes its appearance on the surface to no convulsion or vagary at all, but to a most slow, orderly, and respectable process of nature, by which buried vegetable matter, which would have become peat, and finally brown coal, in a temperate climate, becomes, under the hot tropic soil, asphalt and oil.
2. An impulsive or illogical desire; a caprice or whim.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:whim

   • 1905, Jack London, War of the Classes, Preface:

     And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,—still a vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable.

Derived terms

• vagarity
• vagarious

Related terms

• vague
• vagrant
• vagabond

Translations

See also

• vaguery

Anagrams

• Varyag

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).