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Webster's New World College Dictionary » variance
variance
variance definition
vari·ance (ver′ē əns, var′-)
noun
- the quality, state, or fact of varying or being variant; a changing or tendency to change
- degree of change or difference; divergence; discrepancy
- official permission to bypass regulations; specif., permission to make nonconforming use of zoned property
- an active disagreement; quarrel; dispute
- Accounting the difference between the actual costs of production and the standard or expected costs
- Law a lack of agreement between two parts of a legal proceeding which should agree, as between a statement and the evidence offered in support of it
- Physical Chem. the number of degrees of freedom of a system
- Statistics the square of the standard deviation
Etymology: OFr < L variantia < L varians, prp. of variare, to vary
variance Idioms
at variance
not in agreement or accord; conflicting
Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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