the.com/variation

means A difference or change from a standard, a previous state, or among members of a group — the measurable wiggle room between things that are supposed to be the same.

from From Latin variatio, from variare 'to change, diversify,' rooted in varius meaning 'different, mottled, variegated' — the same root that gives us 'various' and 'variegated.' Varius originally carried a sense of spottedness or mixed coloring, so the word's oldest instinct is visual: something with patches, not one uniform shade. By the time it reached English through French in the medieval period, it had generalized from dappled surfaces to dappled anything — opinions, temperatures, melodies, data.