| 释义 |
var·i·ant
I. \-nt\ adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin variant-, varians, present participle of variare to vary
1. obsolete : tending to, undergoing, or exhibiting change : not constant, unchanging, or uniform : variable, fickle
2. : manifesting variety : marked by diversity : variegated, varied
< long strip of variant country — M.H.Ellis >
3.
a. : different from others of its kind or class : exhibiting slight difference, alteration, or disagreement
< the principal variant points of view — A.T.Weaver >
< a phrase … subject to variant interpretation by successive scholars — Language >
< development of these variant religious groups — E.T.Thompson >
b. : not definitive, generally accepted, or commonly found : modified
< an appendix which contains some variant readings — B.R.Redman >
< rare and elusive variant editions — L.C.Wroth >
II. noun
(-s)
1.
a. : one of two or more persons or things exhibiting usually slight differences : variation
< variants of a folk song >
< that all societies are but variants of one another — Thornton Wilder >
b. : one that varies from the original or archetype
< most military campaigns are … variants on a historical pattern — New Republic >
c. : one that exhibits variation from a type or norm : mutation; often : one whose behavior is at variance with societal norms — compare deviant
2.
a. : one of two or more different spellings (as labor and labour or indexes and indices) or pronunciations (as of economics \ek-, ēk-\) of the same word
b. : one of two or more words or word elements (as biologic and biological or stomat- and stomato-) of essentially the same meaning differing only in the presence or absence of an affix
3. : allophone
4. : a cipher element or code group having the same significance as another and used to impede cryptanalysis |