versicolor

1. Varium (from αἰόλος) means, possessing differences in its own texture, varied; whereas diversum, differing from something else, distinct. Catull. 47, 10. Quos longe simul a domo profectos diverse variæ viæ reportant; that is, whom various ways, in an entirely different direction, bring home. Tac. Hist. i. 25. Otho postquam vario sermone callidos et audaces cognovit pretio et promissis onerat . . . Suspensos cæterorum animos diversis artibus (namely, spe et metu) stimulant. 2. The diversa will have nothing in common, and go different or even opposite ways from each other; whereas the contraria confront and stand directly opposite to each other. Hence the following climax in Cic. Divin. ii. 26, 55. Diversas aut etiam contrarias. Vell. Pat. ii. 75. Diversa præsentibus et contraria exspectatis sperare. Quintil. v. 10, 26. 3. Varium denotes variegated, as exhibiting different colors at the same time, like ποικίλον; whereas versicolor, that which changes its color, according to the light in which it is held, like αἰόλον. Propert. iii. 13, 32. Aut variam plumæ versicoloris avem. Pliny is describing two different properties, xxxvii. 10, when he describes the stone Mithrax, as at the same time multicolor and contra solem varie refulgens. 4. Variare means to give a varied appearance in general; variegare, to give a varied appearance, especially by different colors. (iii. 269.)