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various

va·rious

UK/ˈvɛəɹi.əs/ US/ˈvɛəɹi.əs/ common

adjective

1.

of many different kinds purposefully arranged but lacking any uniformity

  • “assorted sizes”
  • “his disguises are many and various”
  • “various experiments have failed to disprove the theory”
  • “cited various reasons for his behavior”
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2.

considered individually

  • “the respective club members”
  • “specialists in their several fields”
  • “the various reports all agreed”
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3.

distinctly dissimilar or unlike

  • “diverse parts of the country”
  • “celebrities as diverse as Bob Hope and Bob Dylan”
  • “animals as various as the jaguar and the cavy and the sloth”
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4.

having great diversity or variety

  • “his various achievements are impressive”
  • “his vast and versatile erudition”
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Origin

Borrowed from Middle French varieux, from Latin varius (“manifold, diverse, various, parti-colored, variegated, also changing, changeable, fickle, etc.”). By surface analysis, vary + -ous.

Phrases

  • many and various
  • various and sundry
  • various reading

Related words

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.