Definition of "variance" in English

noun

1. The act of varying or the state of being variable.

2. A difference between what is expected and what is observed; deviation.

3. The state of differing or being in conflict.

4. An official permit to do something that is ordinarily forbidden by regulations.

5. (law) A discrepancy between two legal documents.

6. (law) A departure from a cause of action originally in a complaint.

7. (statistics) The second central moment in probability.

8. (physics, chemistry, biology) The number of degrees of freedom in a system.

9. (computing, programming) Covariance and contravariance generally.

   • Depending on the variance of the type constructor, the subtyping relation of the simple types may be either preserved, reversed, or ignored for the respective complex types.