Definition of variant in English:

noun

• A form or version of something that differs in some respect from other forms of the same thing or from a standard.

  ‘clinically distinct variants of malaria’

  as modifier ‘a variant spelling’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Despite the relatively small number of variants, the form of the tale differs in North Wales and in South Wales.’
  • ‘It is disconcerting, however, that two-thirds of the menus here offer variants on pork dishes.’
  • ‘If a virus is in the human population then over time the number of variants will steadily increase.’
  • ‘Then I turned to the low-fat variants of other products, like cheese, and yoghurt.’
  • ‘Players usually play against each other but some variants allow an individual to play against the bank.’
  • ‘We zoomed home alone along the sidewalk, singing a dozen variants of a silly song we had made up the day before.’
  • ‘For trailers and climbers, ivy variants are excellent and come in a range of colours.’
  • ‘Well over a hundred variants on the game have been developed by fans, mostly employing other historic scenarios.’
  • ‘In each country the Rococo took on a national character, and in addition many local variants may be distinguished.’
  • ‘This is a variant of the Cinderella tale, which is not found in Norwegian tradition but occurs in eight Sami variants.’
  • ‘Bo Almqvist further analyses the Irish folk tradition, discussing the two dozen variants it contains.’
  • ‘What we need to do is correlate the various gene variants with various behavioral propensities.’
  • ‘Microsoft this week released a tool to clean up systems infected by the infamous Blaster worm and its sundry variants.’
  • ‘Their work was known through a range of manuscript copies, all showing minor or major variants.’
  • ‘As can be imagined, there are numerous variants on the basic process.’
  • ‘Computer crimes are frequently online variants of established crimes, like fraud and blackmail.’
  • ‘It may also lead to the identification of genetic variants that define a patient's response to a particular drug.’
  • ‘For one thing I've expressed variants of this point of view in the past!’
  • ‘Given this diversity, this is no place to expound a systematic account of liberalism in its many forms and variants.’
  • ‘Other variants of the game are known in other parts of Europe e.g. Italy.’

  Synonyms

  alternative, other, different, divergent, disparate, derived, adapted, modified, revised, altered, mutant, deviant, rogue, aberrant

  View synonyms