variety

«variety» in Mova's school dictionary: having many different kinds of things, not all the same:… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a variety, varieties; countable and uncountable)

meaning for a pupil

1) Variety means having many different kinds of things, not all the same: a menu with variety has lots of choices. tree →

2) A variety of things is a number of different kinds of them: «a variety of fruit». tree →

3) A variety is one particular type of something, especially a type of plant or animal: «a new variety of apple». tree →

4) Variety, or a variety show, is entertainment made of many short acts like songs, jokes and magic. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life it praises change and choice: «variety is the spice of life». In science it names a type within a species, like apple varieties. In maths and data, «a variety of» just means several different ones; it gives no exact number. Stories use it to show a busy, colourful scene. Phrases: «a wide variety of», «a variety of reasons», «for variety», «variety show», «variety pack».

examples

• The school canteen has a good variety of lunches. tree →
• Granny grows ten varieties of tomato. tree →
• We read a variety of books this term, from comics to poems. tree →
• For variety, we had pasta instead of rice. tree →
• The talent show was a variety show with singers, dancers and a juggler. tree →
• Variety is the spice of life, so let's try something new. tree →
• The shop sells a wide variety of pens. tree →
• Penguins come in many varieties, from tiny blue ones to huge emperors. tree →
• His daughter Metra, who was devotedly attached to him, possessed the power of transforming herself into a variety of different animals. tree →

note

Plural «varieties» (change y to ies). «A variety of + plural noun» usually takes a plural verb: «A variety of birds live here». Adjective: «various» (different kinds); verb: «vary». Trap: «a variety of» does not tell how many in a maths problem; it only says they are different kinds.

In the corpora

• Use them for variety, not in every sentence.
• Using a fronted adverbial in every sentence makes writing sound clunky; use them for variety.
• A dialect is a variety of a language with its own words and grammar, spoken by a group or in a place.
• Laughing at someone's dialect is unkind and also wrong about language: every variety of English has grammar.
• In the world, more people speak English as a second language than as a first, in many local varieties.

Trees and pragmatics

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