Толковый словарь английского языка - variant

I. adjective Date: 14th century variable, manifesting variety, deviation, or disagreement, varying usually slightly from the standard form , II. noun Date: circa 1848 one of two or more persons or things exhibiting usually slight differences: as, one that exhibits variation from a type or norm, one of two or more different spellings (as labor and labour) or pronunciations (as of economics ek-, ēk-) of the same word, 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