n.
Function: noun
Date: circa 1848
: 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-, ē k- \ ) 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