variant, a. and n.
(ˈvɛərɪənt)
Also 5–6 varyant (5 -te), varyaunt (5 -te), 5 variaunt(e.
[a. OF. variant (F. variant, = Sp., Pg., and It. variante), a. L. variant-, varians, pres. pple. of variāre to vary.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of persons: Changeful in disposition or purpose; inconstant, fickle. Also const. of or in. Now rare.
| c 1386 Chaucer Can. Yeom. T. 622 On his falshede fayn wold I me wreke, If I wist how, But he is heer and there, He is so variant, he byt no where. c 1400 Beryn 1974 Now þow wolt, & now þow nolt;..Now sey oon, & sith anothir; so variant of mynde! c 1450 Mankind 274 in Macro Plays 11 Be stedefast in condycyon! se ȝe be not varyant! 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xxvii. (Percy Soc.) 130 To be..In stable love fixt and not variaunt. 1550 Bale Image Both Ch. ii. G viij, They are..no wher stedfast & vniforme, but euery wher variant & foolish. 1632 Lithgow Trav. iv. 145 He was also deceitfull, variant, and fraudulent. 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 360 Calm and resolute, if occasionally variant of mood. |
† b. Acting in a changeable or fickle manner.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VIII. 299 He was to large of ȝiftes,..redy to speke and variaunt of dedes. |
† c. Dissentient, disagreeing. Obs.
| 1412–20 Lydg. Chron. Troy iii. 3657 Sethen ȝe alle assenten and accorde, Fro ȝoure sentence I wil nat discorde, In no wyse to be variaunt. |
2. a. Of things: Exhibiting variation or change; tending to vary or alter; not remaining uniform.
| c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. i. met. v. (1868) 22 Þi myȝt attempreþ þo variauntz sesons of þe ȝere. 1387–8 T. Usk Test. Love ii. vi. (Skeat) l. 148 After the variaunt opinion in false hertes of unstable people. c 1400 Pety Job 472 in 26 Pol. Poems 136 My thoughtes wandre wyde whare, For they ben, lorde, full variaunte. c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 71 God of his grace..preserve youre variaunt brutilnesse. 1533 Bellenden Livy iv. xv. (S.T.S.) II. 103 Þe cry of romanis was variant, slaw, & but curage. 1671 R. MacWard True Nonconf. 136 The Ordinances..therefore were appointed..in a variant and mutable forme. c 1674 Acc. Scotland's Griev. under Lauderdale's Min. 10 It was also both inconstant in its being, and variant in its number and method. 1751 Wesley Wks. (1872) XIV. 40 Nouns Variant in their gender are dies and finis. |
† b. Of fortune, conditions, etc.: = variable a. 1 a. Obs. (In early use partly after sense 1.)
| c 1412 Hoccleve De Reg. Princ. 66 So flyttyng is sche [sc. Fortune], and so wariant, Ther is no trust vpon hir fair lawhyng. 1470–85 Malory Arthur xx. xvii. 827 But fortune is soo varyaunt, and the whele soo meuable, there nys none constaunte abydynge. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems lviii. 26 So variant is this warldis rent, That nane thairof can be content. 1513 Douglas æneid xi. viii. 117 The variant chance Of our onstabill lyfe. 1561 Godly Q. Hester (1873) 58 Contente To thinke it no lyghtnes, nor wytte inconstante, But the necessytie of tymes varyant. |
c. Of wind: Changing, shifting. rare—1.
| 1847 Longfellow Ev. i. i. 82 Above in the variant breezes Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled. |
3. a. Exhibiting difference or variety; diversified, varied; diverse, different.
| c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 301 These freris habitis,..þat ben þus large & variaunt as weren habitis of pharisees. c 1400 Rom. Rose 1917 The arwis were so fulle of rage, So variaunt of diversitee. a 1400–50 Alexander 5651 Þai ware visid all in versis in variant lettirs. 1482 Monk of Evesham lvii. (Arb.) 110 A variant medelyng of melody sownyd wyth alle. 1526 R. Whitford Martiloge (1893) 19 He was put to many varyaunt turmentes. 1585 Jas. I Ess. Poesie (Arb.) 33 So Iob and Ieremie..Did right descryue their ioyes, their woes and torts, In variant verse of hundreth thousand sorts. c 1611 Chapman Iliad ii. Comm., The decorum that some poor critics have stood upon..is far from the variant order of nature. 1632 Lithgow Trav. vi. 291 They who would trauerse earths variant face. a 1817 T. Dwight Trav. New Eng., etc. (1821) II. 457 The plains are of moderate extent: the surface being almost every where variant, and undulating. 1855 Bailey Mystic 105 The angels..'stablishing In variant countries various roots of men. 1858 H. Bushnell Nat. & Supernat. ix. (1864) 260 He can produce variant results through invariable causes. |
† b. Of colours: Varied, variegated. Also of cloth or an animal in respect of colour. Obs.
| a 1400–50 Alexander 4336 Nouthire..transmitte we na vebbis To vermylion ne violett ne variant littis. 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. vi. viii. in Ashm. (1652) 163 By colors varyante aye new and new. 1473–4 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. I. 20, vij elne of tartar of variant hewis to lyne a gowne of blac. 1502 Ibid. II. 346 Ane variant hors giffin to the King. 1507 Ibid. III. 260 Taffeti, grene, rede, blew, and variant. 1575 Bk. Univ. Kirk Scotl. 6 Aug., We think..unseemly..all kinde of..licht and variant hewis in cloathing, as red, blew, ȝellow, and sicklyke. 1600 Dr. Dodypoll i. i, Welcome, bright Morne, that with thy golden rayes Reveal'st the variant colours of the world. |
4. a. Differing or discrepant from something; † also const. to (= from).
| c 1400 Mandeville (1839) x. 122 And alle theise han manye Articles of oure Feythe, and to othere thei ben varyaunt. 1473–5 in Cal. Proc. Chanc. Q. Eliz. (1830) II. Pref. 60 The matter comprised in the side replicacion is new mater variaunt from her bill. 1534 Whitinton Tullyes Offices i. (1540) 31 It is no thynge varyaunt fro the dignyte of a wyse man. 1548 Geste Pr. Masse 134 Thee prieste pryvee Masse..is not quadrant but variant to the sayd word [of God]. 1741 T. Robinson Gavelkind ii. 9 Most of the Customs of this Kingdom variant from the Common Law. 1770 Ann. Reg., Chron. 143/2 The publication in the papers was variant from that which he sent home. 1860 J. P. Kennedy Life W. Wirt I. xxii. 355 His first impressions of him..are singularly variant from those which [etc.]. 1880 Mrs. Whitney Odd or Even? xli, Words that were absurdly variant from all her present mood. |
b. Without const. (Cf. various a. 8 d.)
| 1586 J. Ferne Blaz. Gentrie To Gentl. Inner T., They shall find the interpretation thereof many wayes variant and diuers. 1865 Visct. Strangford Selection (1869) II. 187 With a variant spelling of the body of the word. 1879 Farrar St. Paul I. 373 note, One of the numberless instances of variant readings in the Hebrew. 1897 J. M. Whiton Reconsid. & Reinforcem. 23 These..are definitions not too variant to stand indifferently for synonyms of spirit. |
c. Biol. Varying or diverging from type.
| 1881 Athenæum No. 2818. 560 ‘Angela’ is Spielhagen's variant child. 1896 Advance (Chicago) 23 April 592/1 In nature a variant minority is liable to be diluted and to disappear by intermixture. |
B. n.
1. a. A form or modification differing in some respect from other forms of the same thing.
| 1848 Layard Nineveh ii. i. (1849) II. 171 note, Many of these [cuneiform] characters are undoubtedly what are termed ‘variants’; that is, merely a different way of forming the same letter. 1862 Rawlinson Anc. Mon. Chaldæa I. 143 Il, of course, is but a variant of El. 1869 Ellis E.E. Pronunc. i. iv. 248 Other variants of course occur from carelessness. 1869 Rawlinson Anc. Hist. 336 The names seem, however, to be chiefly variants of the general ethnic title. |
b. A various reading; spec. a textual variation in two or more copies of a printed work (not necessarily implying reimpression).
| 1861 Paley Aeschylus (ed. 2), Agam. 1116 note, The variants -οντο and -όντες only show that a termination was added to the original -ον. 1881 Westcott & Hort Grk. N.T. Introd. §3 The primary work of textual criticism is merely to discriminate the erroneous variants from the true. 1927 R. B. McKerrow Introd. Bibliogr. ii. vi. 208 Besides these added lines, The Devil's Charter exhibits a very large number of striking variants in different copies, some being mere corrections of literal errors, others important alterations in wording. 1953 C. Hinman in Shakespeare Q. IV. 280, I have been able to construct an instrument which..has enabled me to collate well over a hundred folio pages a day for some months... Taking reasonable care, the investigator can hardly fail to note any variant, however minute, in two copies of the page being examined. 1972 P. Gaskell New Introd. Bibliogr. 357 Warner Barnes..machine-collated an average of six copies of each of his author's eighteen primary editions... In ten of them he found possible evidence of concealed..reimpressions; in another four, variant states of the type not indicating reimpression... Most of the variants shown up by the machine were trivial. |
2. A variation of the original work, story, song, etc.
| 1872 Ralston Songs Russian People 200 There are many variants of the same song, but they do not differ materially. 1877 A. B. Edwards Up Nile Pref. p. xiii, Religious books, variants of the Ritual, moral essays, maxims. 1885 Clodd Myths & Dr. i. iv. 70 They are the variants of stories presumably related in the Aryan fatherland. |
3. Nat. Hist. A variant form or type.
| 1895 in Funk's Stand. Dict. |
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▸ variant CJD n. Med. (in full variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) a form of spongiform encephalopathy distinguished from typical (sporadic) Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease by earlier age of onset, early psychiatric and sensory symptoms, and certain neuropathological features (esp. prominent prion protein plaques), and thought to be causally linked with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE); abbreviated vCJD.
| 1997 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 94 14279/1 Investigations of the prion diseases have taken on new significance with the reports of more than 20 cases of an atypical, *variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCGD) in teenagers and young adults. 1999 Lancet 2 Jan. 18 The agent that causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (variant CJD) is indistinguishable from the causative agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). 2000 Times 30 Aug. i. 9/1 Ministers believe that they must take every possible precaution to prevent the risk of patients contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). 2003 Independent (Nexis) 21 Apr. Other diseases such as variant-CJD, linked with BSE in cows,..are transmitted through food. |