Comment by genoveffo
3 days ago
I always found interesting that the English mathematical terminology has two different names for "stuff that locally looks like R^n" (manifold) and "stuff that is the zero locus of a polynomial" (variety). Other languages use the same word for both, adding maybe an adjective to specify which one is meant if not clear from the context. In Italian for example they're both "varietà"
In English, not all varieties are manifolds, see forex https://math.stackexchange.com/a/9017/120475
FTA
> The term “manifold” comes from Riemann’s Mannigfaltigkeit, which is German for “variety” or “multiplicity.”
This is not really something limited to mathematics.