variant

²variant

noun

Definition of VARIANT

: one of two or more persons or things exhibiting usually slight differences: as a : one that exhibits variation from a type or norm b : one of two or more different spellings (as labor and labour) or pronunciations (as of economics \ek-, ēk-\) of the same word c : one of two or more words (as geographic and geographical) or word elements (as mon- and mono-) of essentially the same meaning differing only in the presence or absence of an affix

Examples of VARIANT

1. A new variant of the disease has appeared.

First Known Use of VARIANT

circa 1848