name that represents or refers to value ( the stuff you want stored for various usesdynamic no need to define the type up front created through an assignment statement that gives them values using the '=operator if you don' have an assignment ( name to the left of the '='then python stores it in the default result variable ' (notetype '_at the command prompt to view current value"programmers use these variable names to make their code read more like englishand because they have lousy memories if they didn' use good names for things in their softwarethey' get lost when they tried to read their code again ("learn python the hard wayby zed shaw