Standard Lemma guide

covariance

noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • UK: /kəʊˈvɛː.ɹi.əns/
  • US: /koʊˈvæɹ.i.əns/ without the Mary–marry–merry merger
  • /ˈkoʊˈvɛɹ.i.əns/ US, Mary–marry–merry merger
  • Connecticut Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Australian: /kəʉˈveː.ɹi.əns/
  • CMU ARPABET: K OW2 V AA1 R IY2 AH0 N S Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A statistical measure defined as scriptstyle operatorname Cov(X,Y)= operatorname E((X-μ)(Y-ν)) given two real-valued random variables X and Y, with expected values scriptstyle E(X),=,μ and scriptstyle E(Y),=,ν.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Topics: mathematics, sciences, statistics

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

The conversion of data types from wider to narrower in certain situations.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Qualifier: object-oriented programming

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

(statistics) the mean value of the product of the deviations of two variates from their respective means

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: variance

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- Latin co-der. English co- English variance English covariance From co- + variance.

Across languages

Translations

34 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Basque: kobariantza — statistical measure
  • Bulgarian: ковариация (kovariacija) — statistical measure
  • Catalan: covariància — statistical measure
  • Chinese Mandarin: 協方差 /协方差 (xiéfāngchā) — statistical measure
  • Chinese Mandarin: 共變異數 /共变异数 (gòngbiànyìshù) — statistical measure
  • Czech: kovariance — statistical measure
  • Dutch: covariantie — statistical measure
  • Esperanto: kunvarianco — statistical measure
  • Finnish: kovarianssi — statistical measure
  • French: covariance — statistical measure
  • German: Kovarianz — statistical measure
  • Hindi: सहप्रसरण (sahaprasraṇ) — statistical measure
  • Indonesian: kovariansi — statistical measure
  • Indonesian: kovarians — statistical measure
  • Italian: covarianza — statistical measure
  • Kazakh: ковариация (kovariasiä) — statistical measure
  • Kyrgyz: ковариация (kovariatsiya) — statistical measure
  • Polish: kowariancja — statistical measure
  • Portuguese: covariância — statistical measure
  • Romanian: covarianță — statistical measure
  • Russian: ковариа́ция (kovariácija) — statistical measure
  • Spanish: covariación — statistical measure
  • Spanish: covarianza — statistical measure
  • Sundanese: kovarian — statistical measure
  • Tagalog: kaalig — statistical measure
  • Turkish: kovaryans — statistical measure
  • Chinese Mandarin: 協變 /协变 (xiébiàn) — object-oriented programming
  • Finnish: kovarianssi — object-oriented programming
  • French: covariance — object-oriented programming
  • German: Kovarianz — object-oriented programming
  • Japanese: 共変性 (kyōhensei) — object-oriented programming
  • Kazakh: коварианттық (kovarianttyq) — object-oriented programming
  • Kazakh: коварианттылық (kovarianttylyq) — object-oriented programming
  • Russian: ковариантность (kovariantnostʹ) — object-oriented programming
Real reading context

covariance in complete knowledge articles