Varieties

How to spell varieties

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce varieties

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does varieties mean?

1. nounDifferent kinds or types of something within a broader group or category.

Varieties in a sentence

• The garden centre stocks dozens of tomato varieties for keen growers.

• The supermarket now sells several varieties of oat milk.

Where does varieties come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin varietas, meaning 'difference' or 'diversity', which was built on the adjective varius, literally 'changing', 'speckled', or 'many-coloured'. The same varius also gives us 'various', 'variation', and 'variegated', all carrying that core idea of things differing from one another. English took variety in through Old French variete during the late 1400s, at first to describe the general quality of being diverse, and only later to mean a distinct kind or type within a larger group, as in a variety of apple. The plural varieties simply adds the regular '-es' ending used after a consonant-plus-y, where the 'y' shifts to 'i'. That y-to-i swap is the main spelling point: the singular ends in '-ety' but the plural is spelled '-eties', not '-etys'.

How the word is built

• vari- (from Latin varius: changing, diverse)
• -ety (noun suffix)
• -es (plural)