Meaning & use
variances
Last updated
Instances or degrees of difference, change, or discrepancy between things.
See it in a sentence
The report highlighted variances between the projected and actual budget figures.
The homeowner applied for a zoning variance to build closer to the property line.
A note on using this word
In statistics, "variance" has a precise technical meaning as a measure of how spread out a set of data values is.
Words with a similar meaning
discrepanciesdeviations
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
consistencies
Another way to use it
2. noun
(law) An official exemption from a zoning or building regulation.
The city council granted several variances to local developers.
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