Variety

How to spell variety

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce variety

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does variety mean?

1. nounA range of different things, or the quality of not being the same throughout.
2. nounA particular kind or sub-class within a larger group, such as a strain of plant or product.

Variety in a sentence

• The buffet offered a wide variety of hot and cold dishes.

• This variety of tomato ripens earlier than the others.

• She added more variety to her workouts to stay motivated.

• The bakery sells a sourdough variety made with rye flour.

Where does variety come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin varietas, an abstract noun meaning 'difference' or 'diversity', which was built on the adjective varius, meaning 'changing, mottled, or diverse'. The same varius root sits behind familiar relatives such as 'various', 'vary', and 'variation', all of which carry that core idea of things differing from one another. English took the word in during the late 1500s, partly through Old French variete, and used it first to mean a state of being varied. From there it developed the everyday senses of a collection of differing kinds and, later, a particular type or sub-class within a larger group. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the stressed 'rye' sound is written with a plain 'i', and the unstressed ending is the slightly unusual '-ety' rather than '-iety', which catches many writers out.

How the word is built

• vari- (from Latin varius: changing, diverse)
• -ety (noun suffix forming an abstract quality)