variety

Pronunciation: /vəˈɹaɪ.ə.ti/

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B1 — Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a collection containing a variety of sorts of things
  2. noun noticeable heterogeneity
  3. noun (biology) a taxonomic category consisting of members of a species that differ from others of the same species in minor but heritable characteristics

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); by surface analysis, various + -ety. 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”)

In classic literature

Synonyms

assortment, mixture, mixed bag, miscellany, miscellanea, salmagundi, smorgasbord, potpourri, motley

Semantic network

Broader (hypernyms)
collection
Narrower (hyponyms)
odds and ends, sampler, witches' brew, selection, alphabet soup, grab bag

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