Etymologically
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variety

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /vəˈraɪ.ə.ti/, US /vəˈraɪ.ə.t̬i/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French variété,[2][3] and directly from Latin varietās (“difference, diversity; a kind, sort”),[4][2] from varius (“various, diverse”).[4][2][5] Latin varius is also the source of variable, variegated, various and vary.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Change of fortune, fickleness: before 1533, now obsolete.[6][2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s.[4]

Semantic evolution

The quality of being varied, diversity, is from 1548,[6] the 1540s in Etymonline,[4] and a collection of different things, or a difference between things of the same kind, from the 1550s.[4][6] As an artistic quality it is from the 1590s.[4] A thing differing from others of its kind is from the 1610s.[4] William Cowper's poem The Task gave the proverb variety is the spice of life.[5] Mixed theatrical entertainment is American English, recorded by 1868 (variety troupe),[4] and the variety show from 1882;[2] it was first performed in saloons before an all-male audience, and when cleaned up it became vaudeville.[5] In Scots and some English dialects a variety was a rarity.[7]

Timeline

  • before 1533 – change of fortune (obsolete).[6]
  • 1548 – diversity.[6]
  • 1550s – an assortment.[4]
  • 1610s – a variant; a type.[4]
  • 1868 – variety entertainment.[4]
  • 1882 – variety show.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The quality of being varied; diversity.
  2. A number of different things of a particular class; an assortment.
  3. A kind or sort: a new variety of rose.
  4. (biology) A group within a species differing in minor characteristics; a cultivated plant type.
  5. Entertainment made up of a series of different acts.

Word family

  • subvariety
  • varietal
  • variety meat
  • variety show
  • variety store
  • variant
  • variation
  • varied
  • variegate
  • variegated
  • variegation
  • varier
  • various
  • vary
  • variable
  • vaudeville

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)