1. The difference between an expected and actual result, such as between a budget and actual expenditure. 2. Statistics: The arithmetic mean of the squares of the deviations of all values in a set of numbers from their arithmetic mean. Variance and its square root (the standard deviation) are of fundamental importance as ameasure of dispersion. Read more
USAGE EXAMPLE
There was a lot of variance in our budget this year, so we will have to cut back on the number of yacht trips that we take.