variat

Variat is a term that appears in several languages and disciplines, generally connected to the notion of a variant, variation, or variable form of something. In English-language technical writing, variat itself is not a standard term. The related word variate is commonly used to denote a numerical outcome of a random process, and variant or variation are the usual terms in many fields. When variat appears, it is often a transliteration, an older spelling, or a translation artifact rather than a fixed, universally accepted term.

In statistics and probability, the concept closest to variat is the variate or random variable. A variate represents a numeric outcome governed by a probabilistic model. Some non-English sources may render this idea with a form resembling variat, depending on linguistic conventions, but variate remains the preferred English usage.

In biology and genetics, variation among organisms is described through variants or variant forms. Some historical or translated texts might use variat in place of variant, though this usage is not standard in contemporary English scientific writing.

In linguistics and philology, variation across language forms is a central topic, with standard terms being variation and variant. Again, variat may appear in dictionaries or as a lexical root in certain languages, but it is not a widely adopted technical term in modern practice.

Etymology generally traces the idea to Latin roots related to vary. See also: variant, variation, variate, random variable.