variety

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

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