Noun

1. An inconsistency between facts or sentiments.

   They found a discrepancy between the first set of test results and the second, and they're still trying to figure out why.

2. The state or quality of being discrepant.

Quotations

• 1841 — Edgar Allan Poe, Three Sundays in a Week

  The fact is, some trivial discrepancy did exist, just then, between what I said and what I had not the courage to say—between what I did and what I had half a mind to do.

• 1873 — James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Preface

  I was aware that there was supposed to be a difference between Faraday's way of conceiving phenomena and that of the mathematicians, so that neither he nor they were satisfied with each other's language. I had also the conviction that this discrepancy did not arise from either party being wrong

• 1889 — Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Ch XXVIII

  Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you are all right, there is no discrepancy; but as between your clothes and your bearing, you are all wrong, there is a most noticeable discrepancy.

• 1911 — Algernon Blackwood, The Centaur, XXX

  The discrepancies--the omissions in his written account especially--were simply due, I feel, to the fact that his skill in words was not equal to the depth and brilliance of the emotions that he experienced.

• 1923 — H. P. Lovecraft, The Horror at Martin's Beach

  Despite the large number of witnesses, no two accounts agree; and the testimony taken by local authorities contains the most amazing discrepancies.

• 1946 — Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Ch 44

  One day the public treasurer, Kasturabai, could not account for a disbursement of four rupees. Gandhi duly published an auditing in which he inexorably pointed out his wife's four rupee discrepancy.

• 1978 — Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, Art XIV

  We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved violate the truth claims of the Bible.

• 1980 — NASA/ASEE, Advanced Automation for Space Missions, Ch 5.2

  A machine can compare the stored description of itself with the description obtained by inspection, and note the discrepancies.

Synonyms

• (inconsistency): conflict, contrariety, deviation, difference, disagreement, disparity, divergence, incompatibility, inconsistency, mismatch, variance, variation, dissimilarity, anomaly
• (discrepant state): discordance, anomalous