Other forms: variables
Something variable changes, and you cannot count on which way it will go. A variable wind that swings from north to west and back again. Variable weather. A variable rate on a loan, four per cent this month and something else by April.
In science and in maths the word is a noun: a variable is the thing in an experiment you are allowed to change, or the letter standing in for a number nobody has worked out yet. Programmers use it the same way — a variable is a named box, and you can swap what is in the box whenever you like. Keep the two jobs apart, because as an adjective it is a warning: of variable quality is a polite way of saying that some of it was bad. It sits happily after highly and extremely, and the word you will most often see standing opposite it is fixed — a fixed rate or a variable one.
1adjectivechangeableChanging, or able to change.~40%
“The wind was light and variable all afternoon.”
synonyms: changeable, shifting
2nounvariableSomething in an experiment or a situation that can change and be measured.~15%
“They changed one variable at a time and wrote down the result.”
3nounmathsIn maths and computing, a name or symbol holding a value that can change.~43%
“Give the variable a name you will still recognise next year.”
4adjectiveconsistentNot consistent — good on some occasions and poor on others.~2%
“The food was cheap and of variable quality.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 179 sentences found in the wild and placed 178 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
variable is a factor that can change.
VARI-able → a FAIRY
A fairy the size of a spoon sits on the kitchen table, tapping the fruit bowl with her stick. Tap — the apple is a pear. Tap — the pear is a lemon. She keeps tapping, and every fruit on the table takes a turn at being every other one.
hooks ontofairy
It came into English in the fourteenth century from Old French, and it is vary plus able — a thing able to vary. Behind that is Latin variare, to change, built on varius, meaning different or various. The Latin says it and the English says it again, seven hundred years later, in almost the same letters.
Latin
variare — to change
Old French
variable
English, today
variable
Built from
Borrowed into Middle English - in the 14th century from Old French variable, from Latin variare (“to change”), from varius (“different, various”). Equates to English vary + able.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA