VARIANCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does variance mean? 

• VARIANCE (noun)
  The noun VARIANCE has 7 senses:

1. an event that departs from expectations

2. discord that splits a group

3. the second moment around the mean; the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from its mean value

4. a difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions

5. the quality of being subject to variation

6. an official dispensation to act contrary to a rule or regulation (typically a building regulation)

7. an activity that varies from a norm or standard

  Familiarity information: VARIANCE used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VARIANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An event that departs from expectations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

discrepancy; variance; variant

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

departure; deviation; difference; divergence (a variation that deviates from the standard or norm)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Discord that splits a group

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

division; variance

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

discord; dissension (disagreement among those expected to cooperate)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The second moment around the mean; the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from its mean value

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

moment (the n-th moment of a distribution is the expected value of the n-th power of the deviations from a fixed value)

Domain category:

statistics (a branch of applied mathematics concerned with the collection and interpretation of quantitative data and the use of probability theory to estimate population parameters)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "variance"):

standard deviation (the square root of the variance)

covariance ((statistics) the mean value of the product of the deviations of two variates from their respective means)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

disagreement; discrepancy; divergence; variance

Context example:

a growing divergence of opinion

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

difference (the quality of being unlike or dissimilar)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "variance"):

allowance; leeway; margin; tolerance (a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits)

Sense 5

Meaning:

The quality of being subject to variation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

variability; variableness; variance

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

changeability; changeableness (the quality of being changeable; having a marked tendency to change)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "variance"):

variedness (characterized by variation)

variegation (variability in coloration)

personal equation (variability attributable to individual differences)

Derivation:

variable (marked by diversity or difference)

Sense 6

Meaning:

An official dispensation to act contrary to a rule or regulation (typically a building regulation)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

a zoning variance

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

dispensation (an exemption from some rule or obligation)

Sense 7

Meaning:

An activity that varies from a norm or standard

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

variance; variation

Context example:

any variation in his routine was immediately reported

Hypernyms ("variance" is a kind of...):

activity (any specific behavior)

Derivation:

variant (differing from a norm or standard)

vary (be at variance with; be out of line with)

 Context examples 

The variance depends on the assay.

(NIH Unit of Thrombin Inhibited/Square Centimeter, NCI Thesaurus)

A description of the variance of an administrative activity.

(Performed Administrative Activity Variance Reason, NCI Thesaurus)

A coded value specifying the kind of variance.

(Performed Administrative Activity Variance Type Code, NCI Thesaurus)

A series of float values each of which represents proportion of variance for each principal component.

(Eigenvalue, NCI Thesaurus)

The researchers estimate that this variation accounted for 2% to 10% of the test performance variance in both groups studied.

(Oxytocin affects facial recognition, NIH)

In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain by being on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a state of variance.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Device problems that result from a combination of specification variances of the components.

(Device Tolerance Stack-Up Evaluation Result, Food and Drug Administration)

The distribution of the ratio of two independent quantities each of which is distributed like a variance in a normally distributed sample.

(F-Distribution, NCI Thesaurus)

It is a point difficult to fix where the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A family of continuous probability distributions defined by the parameters of mean and variance.

(Gaussian Distribution, NCI Thesaurus)