variable

«variable» in Mova's school dictionary: Changing often or able to change: variable weather — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (variable); noun (a variable, variables)

meaning for a pupil

1) (adjective) Changing often or able to change: variable weather. tree →

2) (noun, maths) A letter or symbol, such as x or n, that stands for a number we do not know or that can change. tree →

3) (noun, science) Something that can change in an experiment, such as temperature or time. tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths: «Let n be the number of apples» – n is the variable. In science: a fair test changes one variable and keeps the others the same. In everyday life: variable weather, variable prices. Phrases: «independent variable», «keep variables the same».

examples

• In 3 + x = 10, x is the variable, and x = 7. tree →
• The weather in spring is variable. tree →
• In our test, the only variable we changed was the amount of water. tree →
• Keep every other variable the same for a fair test. tree →
• The price of fruit is variable through the year. tree →
• The heater has a variable setting from low to high. tree →
• Author's archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved. tree →

note

Plural variables. In maths a variable is usually a letter in italics. In a fair test: change one variable, measure another, keep the rest the same. Opposite of the adjective: constant, fixed.

In the corpora

• The thing you change on purpose is called the variable you are testing.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «variable» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.