DISCREPANCY

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does discrepancy mean? 

• DISCREPANCY (noun)
  The noun DISCREPANCY has 2 senses:

1. a difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions

2. an event that departs from expectations

  Familiarity information: DISCREPANCY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISCREPANCY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

disagreement; discrepancy; divergence; variance

Context example:

a growing divergence of opinion

Hypernyms ("discrepancy" is a kind of...):

difference (the quality of being unlike or dissimilar)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "discrepancy"):

allowance; leeway; margin; tolerance (a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits)

Derivation:

discrepant (not in accord)

discrepant (not in agreement)

discrepant (not compatible with other facts)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An event that departs from expectations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

discrepancy; variance; variant

Hypernyms ("discrepancy" is a kind of...):

departure; deviation; difference; divergence (a variation that deviates from the standard or norm)

Derivation:

discrepant (not in accord)

 Context examples 

Astronomers had suggested that this discrepancy may be due to the sun warming discrete dark patches on Makemake’s surface.

(Hubble Discovers Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake, NASA)

A discrepancy between a computed, observed, or measured value or condition and the true, specified, or theoretically correct value or condition.

(Error, NCI Thesaurus)

“Some unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from the discrepancy in their years. It may have grown up out of almost nothing.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This means discrepancies between the scientists' models of Ceres' gravity and what Dawn observed in these four locations can be associated with subsurface structures.

(Dawn Finds Possible Ancient Ocean Remnants at Ceres, NASA)

In a study of walnuts, the team found an even greater discrepancy between what is reported on the label and the ME value.

(Going Nuts Over Calories, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

This category also includes a buffer zone, which should prevent small, uncontrolled, technical factors from causing major discrepancies in interpretations, especially for drugs with narrow pharmacotoxicity margins.

(Antimicrobial Intermediate Susceptibility Result, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

This discrepancy can most easily be explained by late accretion after core formation was complete.

(NASA-funded Simulations Show How Massive Collisions Delivered Metal to Early Earth, NASA)

Useful in assessing for developmental dysplasia of the hip or a leg-length discrepancy, this is the result obtained when the patient is placed in a supine position and the ankles are brought to the buttocks with the hips and knees flexed.

(Galeazzi Test Result, NCI Thesaurus)

He calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to give details of his conversation with his father, and his singular account of his father’s dying words.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An assessment for developmental dysplasia of the hip or a leg-length discrepancy, the patient is placed in a supine position and the ankles are brought to the buttocks with the hips and knees flexed.

(Galeazzi Test, NCI Thesaurus)