variety
n. C / Un. a collection of many different things or people. You use it to describe a group that is not all the same.
n. the quality or state of being diverse or different; a collection of distinct items within a single category.
The shop sells a wide variety of fresh fruit.
The local library offers a great variety of books for both children and adults.
While the basic structure of the language remains constant, regional dialects provide a rich variety of vocabulary and pronunciation that reflects the area's unique history.
From Middle French varieté (“variety”) (modern French variété (“variety; genre, type”)) or directly from its etymon Latin varietās (“difference; diversity, variety”) + English -ty (suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives); by surface analysis, various + -ety. Varietās is derived from varius (“different, diverse, various; variegated”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to abandon; to give out; to leave”)) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being). The English word displaced the native Old English mislīcnes. Sense 1.3.2 (“total number of distinct states of a system; logarithm to the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system”) was coined by the English psychiatrist William Ross Ashby (1903–1972) in his work An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956). Cognates * Galician variedade (“variety”) * Italian varietà (“difference; variety”) * Portuguese variedade (“variety”) * Spanish variedad (“breed; variety”)
Often used in the pattern 'a variety of' followed by a plural noun. When used as a collective subject, it can take a singular or plural verb depending on the emphasis.
a variety of booka variety of booksThe phrase 'a variety of' must be followed by a plural countable noun.