Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word Talk:variance. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word Talk:variance, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say Talk:variance in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word Talk:variance you have here. The definition of the word Talk:variance will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofTalk:variance, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Rfv-sense "A difference between what is expected and what happens." This sense seems like it could work in some cases (e.g. "a variance between the hypothesis and the lab results" ). But in the broadest reading, it seems odd (e.g. "the optimistic graduate's variance" doesn't seem to make sense); has "variance" been used this way? Imetsia (talk) 20:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
I agree that this is probably a special case of a broader sense, but I'm not sure that the broader sense is presently covered. "a difference" does not seem to me to be the same as "the state of differing", which how sense 3 presently reads. Mihia (talk) 13:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Is “the optimistic graduate’s difference between what is expected and what happens” a proper phrase? The subject of the expecting is the observer, not the object displaying the variance. The phrase does not mean, “the difference between the optimistic graduate’s expectation and what happened”. Taken literally, it could mean instead that we expected the optimistic graduate to be overly optimistic, but in reality they proved to be only moderately optimistic; the difference between these degrees of optimism is the variance. It would (I think) be clearer if "what happens” is replaced by “what is observed”. --Lambiam21:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
