variety

Etymology

From Middle French varieté (“variety”) (modern French variété (“variety; genre, type”)) or directly from its etymon Latin varietās (“difference; diversity, variety”) + English -ty (suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives). Varietās is derived from varius (“different, diverse, various; variegated”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to abandon; to give out; to leave”)) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being). The English word displaced the native Old English mislīcnes. Sense 1.3.2 (“total number of distinct states of a system; logarithm to the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system”) was coined by the English psychiatrist William Ross Ashby (1903–1972) in his work An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956). cognates * Galician variedade (“variety”) * Italian varietà (“difference; variety”) * Portuguese variedade (“variety”) * Spanish variedad (“breed; variety”)

noun

1. (countable)
   1. A deviation or difference.
   2. A specific variation of something.
      1. (biology, loosely) An animal or plant (or a group of such animals or plants) with characteristics causing it to differ from other animals or plants of the same species; a cultivar.
         1. (botany, taxonomy) A rank in a taxonomic classification below species and (if present) subspecies, and above form; hence, an organism of that rank.
            Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum is a variety of Capsicum annuum commonly known as chiltepin or Indian pepper.
      2. (linguistics) A specific form of a language, neutral to whether that form is an accent, dialect, register, etc., and to its prestige level; an isolect or lect.
         The mere existence of a dictionary of a certain variety of English does not automatically confer acceptance of that variety. 2014 March, James Lambert, “Diachronic Stability in Indian English Lexis”, in World Englishes, volume 33, number 1, Oxford, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Pergamon Press for the International Association for World Englishes, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 114
      3. (philately) A stamp, or set of stamps, which has one or more characteristics (such as colour, paper, etc.) differing from other stamps in the same issue, especially if such differences are intentionally introduced.
   3. A collection or number of different things.
      1. (algebra)
         1. In universal algebra: an equational class; the class of all algebraic structures of a given signature, satisfying a given set of identities.
         2. (algebraic geometry) Ellipsis of algebraic variety (“the set of solutions of a given system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers; any of certain generalisations of such a set that preserves the geometric intuition implicit in the original definition”).
      2. (cybernetics) The total number of distinct states of a system; also, the logarithm to the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system.
   4. (radio, television, theater) Ellipsis of variety performance. or variety show (“a type of entertainment featuring a succession of short, unrelated performances by various artistes such as (depending on the medium) acrobats, comedians, dancers, magicians, singers, etc.”).
2. (uncountable)
   1. The quality of being varied; diversity.
      Variety is the spice of life.
      The teeth of sharks, for all their variety, share one characteristic, and that is the way in which they are attached. They are not permanent, but are constantly being replaced, not only when one is lost, but as a constant function of growth. 1976, Richard Ellis, “The Biology of Sharks”, in The Book of Sharks (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, published 1989, page 34, column 1
   2. (radio, television, theater) The kind of entertainment given in variety performances or shows; also, the production of, or performance in, variety performances or shows.