variant
/ˈvɛəɹi.ənt/US/ˈvæɹi.ənt/
variant adjective: showing variety, diverse.
Adjective
variant (comparative more variant, superlative most variant)
- Showing variety, diverse.
- Showing deviation or disagreement.
- Variable.
- Covariant and/or contravariant.
Noun
variant (plural variants)
- Something that is slightly different from a type or norm.
- All breeds of dog are variants of the species “Canis lupus familiaris”.
- A different sequence of a gene (locus).
- Most train operators have reduced services with emergency timetables, as they struggle to cope with a rapid increase in staff absences due to the Omicron variant of COVID.2022 January 12, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Emergency timetables as absences surge due to COVID”, in RAIL, number 948, page 6
- A variable that can hold any of various unrelated data types.
- One of a set of words or other linguistic forms that conveys the same meaning or serves the same function.
- The word "kerosine" is a variant of “kerosene”.
- The "Terms" number is the total number of words and lexical phrases, including sub-headwords and other nested lexical items, but exclusive of variants.2012, James Lambert, “Beyond Hobson-Jobson: A new lexicography for Indian English”, in World Englishes, page 297
variant meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
variant in Hindi
- वैरिएंट, वैरिएन्ट
variant in Tamil
- திரிபுரு, வறுபாடு காட்டும் தாவரம், மாறி, மாற்றொலி
variant in Urdu
- بدل پذیر, مختلف, منحرف, متغیر
variant in Bengali
- বৈকল্পিক, ভ্যারিয়েন্ট
More languagesFewer languages
- variant in Telugu
- వేరియంట్ vēriyaṇṭ
- variant in Malayalam
- വകഭേദം vakabhēdaṁ
- variant in Kannada
- ರೂಪಾಂತರ ಹೊಂದುವ, ವ್ಯತ್ಯಾಸ ಹೊಂದಿರುವ, ಭಿನ್ನ, ವೈವಿಧ್ಯ ಉಳ್ಳ
- variant in Odia
- ଭାରିଆଣ୍ଟ
- variant in Arabic
- اِخْتِلَاف iḵtilāf
- variant in Malay
- varian
- variant in Indonesian
- varian
- variant in Thai
- การเปลี่ยนแปลง gaan-bplìian-bplɛɛng
- variant in Vietnamese
- phương án, biến thể
Examples of variant in a sentence
- This usage is often classified as a variant spelling of shark, and unrelated to the 'pointed' or 'cutting' meanings of sharp.
- Some words have many spellings: Take, for example, coordinate, which also has a hyphenated spelling variant — co-ordinate — and a dieretic one, coördinate.
- Participants were told that, unlike previous variants, the Omega variant can affect teenagers.
Forms of variant
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more variant |
| superlative | most variant |
| alternative form (obsolete) | variaunt |
| Noun | |
| plural | variants |
Origin of variant
From Old French variant, from Latin variāns, the present active participle of variō (“to change”). First attested in c. 1380.
Words formed from variant
- time-variant
- Alpha variant
- Beta variant
- biovariant
- bivariant
- copy-number variant
- delta variant
- epivariant
- Epsilon variant
- equivariant
- Eta variant
- Gamma variant
- genovariant
- glycovariant
- heterovariant
- immunovariant
- invariant
- Iota variant
- isovariant
- Kappa variant
- Kraken variant
- Lambda variant
- metavariant
- microvariant
- monovariant
- multivariant
- Mu variant
- neurovariant
- nonvariant
- Omega variant
- Omicron variant
- pathovariant
- pharmacovariant
- polyvariant
- scariant
- serovariant
- splice variant
- subvariant
- Theta variant
- trivariant
- univariant
- unvariant
- variant reading
- -varin
- Zeta variant
- z-variant
Phrases with variant
Questions about variant
- What does variant mean?
- Variant means showing variety, diverse.
- What is variant in Hindi?
- Variant in Hindi is वैरिएंट, वैरिएन्ट. See Variant meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is variant?
- Variant can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce variant?
- Variant is pronounced /ˈvɛəɹi.ənt/ (UK).
Words near variant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: variant (page history and authors); variant (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); variant (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); variant (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); variant (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); వేరియంట్ (Telugu) (page history and authors); വകഭേദം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); variant (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); variant (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-variant.wav.
Cite this entry: “variant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/variant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.