variant

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English variaunt,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French variant,^[4][5][6] and also comes directly from Latin variāns (“changing, varying”),^[2][3][7] the present participle of variō (“to change, vary”), from varius (“various, diverse”).^[8][3][9] It is related to vary and various.^[3][9] The noun was formed from the adjective in the mid-19th century.^[2][3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of things, tending to vary or change, not uniform: c. 1374, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[4][2] Barnhart dates the form variaunt to about 1380.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the adjective was used of people who were fickle and changeable (c. 1386, in Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale), and briefly of people who disagreed (1412–20).^[4][3] It also meant varied or diverse (c. 1380) and differing from something else (c. 1400),^[4][3] the sense that led to the modern ones; in biology it was used from 1881 of what departs from the type.^[4][3] The noun, a form that differs from others of the same thing, is recorded from 1848 or 1849,^{[2][3][10][4]} with the textual sense of a different reading in two copies of a work from 1855,^[4] or 1861 according to Etymonline,^[3] and the sense of a different version of a story or song from 1872.^[4] Weekley used variant for a parallel form of a word, such as burden beside burthen.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1374 – of things, changing, not uniform.^[4]
• c. 1380 – varied, diverse.^[4]
• c. 1386 – of people, fickle.^[4]
• c. 1400 – differing from something.^[4][3]
• 1848 – noun, a different form of something.^[2][3]
• 1855 – noun, a different reading in a text.^[4]
• 1872 – noun, a different version of a story or song.^[4]
• 1881 – (biology) varying from the type.^[4][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A form or version of something that differs in some way from other forms of the same thing: a regional variant of the recipe.
2. A different spelling or pronunciation of the same word.
3. A different reading of a passage in two or more copies of a text.
4. (statistics) A variate.
5. (biology) An organism, strain or gene that differs from the type.

Adjective

1. Differing from a standard or from others of its kind: variant spellings.
2. (obsolete) Changeable, fickle.

Word family

• invariant
• nonvariant
• unvariant

Related words

• variance
• variation
• vary
• various
• variable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray