From Higgs to God Particle: Analyzing terminological variation in the context of determinologization. This article aims at discussing terminological variation in the context of determinologization, in the field of particle physics. Our observations stem from a tool-based analysis of two comparable corpora: one including specialized texts (articles and theses) and one including general press. These corpora are organized diachronically and cover the period 2003-2021. Our analysis shows five types of phenomena: the roles of centrality and intertextuality, the place of metalinguistic contexts, the importance of variants’ metaphorical potential, and their creativity potential. These phenomena provide more insight both on the ways in which term variants are used in the press and on their contribution to the determinologization process.