English Student's definitions

variance

a. The act of varying.
b. The state or quality of being variant or variable; a variation.
c. A difference between what is expected and what actually occurs.
2. The state or fact of differing or of being in conflict.

Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to retire from the army and return and marry Sonya, Nicholas, serious, sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him, passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his regiment.
War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo

by English Student November 4, 2013