pair
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: pâr
ipa: /pɛə(ɹ)/
enpr: pâr
ipa: /pɛ(ə)ɹ/
ipa: /peː/
note: without the cheer–chair merger
ipa: /ˈpeə/
note: New Zealand, cheer–chair merger
ipa: /ˈpiə/
ipa: /ˈpeɹ/
note: Lancashire, fair–fur merger
ipa: /ˈpɜː(ɹ)/
homophone: pare
homophone: pear
homophone: pere
homophone: peer
homophone: pier (both cheer–chair merger)
homophone: per
homophone: purr (both fair–fur merger)
rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
Forms: form: pairs
form: pair
Etymology: From Middle English paire, from Old French paire, from Latin paria (“equals”), neuter plural of par (“pair”). Related to pār (“equal”, adjective). Compare Saterland Frisian Poor (“pair”), West Frisian pear (“pair”), Dutch paar (“pair”), German Paar (“pair”), Italian paio (“pair”)
Senses: examples: text: Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. Every body sat down; the curtain shook, rose sufficiently high to display several pair of yellow boots paddling about, and there it remained.
ref: 1834 February, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter II, in Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. […], volume II, London: John Macrone, […], published 1836, →OCLC, page 266:
text: Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load.
ref: 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 209:
text: So, one evening, I made a speech in English with gestures, not one of which was lost to the sixty pairs of eyes before me, and the next morning I started the hammock off in front all right.
ref: 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 210:
text: Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet. Perhaps we assume that our name, address and search preferences will be viewed by some unseen pair of corporate eyes, probably not human, and don't mind that much.
ref: 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:
text: I couldn't decide which of the pair of designer shirts I preferred, so I bought the pair.
glosses: Two similar or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
examples: text: [S]he had finished the second sock, and pulled its pair out of the bag before handing them to her husband.
ref: 1992, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Marking Time: Volume 2 of The Cazalet Chronicle, page 74:
text: Must be good at athletics, home repairs, making mince interesting and finding the pair to the other glove.
ref: 1996, Kathy Lette, Mad Cows, page 219:
glosses: Two similar or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
One of the constituent items that make up a pair.
examples: text: Spouses should make a great pair.
glosses: Two people in a relationship, partnership or friendship.
examples: text: a pair of scissors; two pairs of spectacles; several pairs of jeans
glosses: Used with binary nouns (often in the plural to indicate multiple instances, since such nouns are plural only, except in some technical contexts).
examples: text: A pair is harder to drive than two mounts with separate riders.
glosses: A couple of working animals attached to work together, as by a yoke.
topics: card-games
games
glosses: A poker hand that contains two cards of identical rank, which cannot also count as a better hand.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
synonyms: pair of spectacles
spectacles
glosses: A score of zero runs (a duck) in both innings of a two-innings match.
examples: text: They turned a pair to end the fifth.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A double play, two outs recorded in one play.
examples: text: The Pirates took a pair from the Phillies.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A doubleheader, two games played on the same day between the same teams.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
rowing
sports
glosses: A boat for two sweep rowers.
examples: text: She's got a gorgeous pair.
glosses: A pair of breasts.
examples: text: Grow a pair, mate.
glosses: A pair of testicles.
topics: government
politics
glosses: The exclusion of one member of a parliamentary party from a vote, if a member of the other party is absent for important personal reasons.
examples: text: There were two pairs on the final vote.
text: One-line business is optional; three-line business compulsory; when it's two lines you have to be on parade unless you have secured a 'pair' and cleared it with the 'pairing whip'.
ref: 1999, Gyles Brandreth, chapter 3, in Breaking the Code:
glosses: Two members of opposite parties or opinion, as in a parliamentary body, who mutually agree not to vote on a given question, or on issues of a party nature during a specified time.
examples: text: Thou lieſt; I ha’ nothing buy my ſkin, / And my cloaths; my ſword here, and my ſelf; / Two Crowns in my pocket; two pair of Cards; / And three falſe Dice: I can ſwim like a fiſh / Raſcal, nothing to hinder me.
ref: c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Sea-Voyage. A Comedy.”, in Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. […], [part 1], London: […] J[ohn] Macock [and H. Hills], for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, and Richard Marriot, published 1679, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 341:
text: It would never do, you know, for me to be plunging myself into poverty and shabbiness and love in one room up three pair of stairs, and all that sort of thing.
ref: 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, “Comprises, among Other Important Matters, Pecksniffian and Architectural, an Exact Relation of the Progress Made by Mr. Pinch in the Confidence and Friendship of the New Pupil”, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 74:
glosses: A number of things resembling one another, or belonging together; a set.
glosses: In a mechanism, two elements, or bodies, which are so applied to each other as to mutually constrain relative motion; named in accordance with the motion it permits, as in turning pair, sliding pair, twisting pair.
Synonyms: sense: two objects in a group
word: duo
word: dyad
word: couple
word: brace
word: twosome
word: duplet
word: duo
Derived terms: acid-base pair
alpha pair
another pair of shoes
aspectual pair
base pair
base-pair breathing
bottom pair
Breit-Wheeler pair production
carriage and pair
conjugate acid-base pair
conjugate redox pair
contrapair
Cooper pair
coxless pair
Darlington pair
dispair
eigenpair
electron pair
extrapair
extra pair of hands
force pair
fresh pair of eyes
get a pair
golden pair
grow a pair
have a pair
homologous pair
Hoogsteen base pair
inert pair effect
in pairs
interpair
intrapair
inversion pair
kernel pair
keypair
kilobase pair
king pair
Kramers pair
Lax pair
linear pair
live pair
lone pair
middle pair
minimal pair
multipair
near-minimal pair
on a pair
one hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen
one pair
ordered pair
orthopair
overpair
pair and share
pair bond
pair bonding
pairbreaking
pairforming
pair-horse
pair-oar(ed)
pair of binoculars
pair of colors
pair of colours
pair of compasses
pair of eyeglasses
pair of forceps
pair of glasses
pair of goggles
pair of hands
pair of ladders
pair of nutcrackers
pair of pants
pair of pincers
pair of pliers
pair of scissors
pair of secateurs
pair of shades
pair of shears
pair of shoes
pair of specs
pair of stairs
pair of stepladders
pair of sunglasses
pair of tongs
pair of trousers
pair of tweezers
pair of underwear
pair production
pair programming
pair royal
pair skating
pairwise
pairwork
photopair
pigeon pair
pocket pair
post and pair
rarepair
royal pair
safe pair of hands
shielded twisted pair
show a clean pair of heels
slot pair
stereopair
strap on a pair
subpair
surrogate pair
Sziklai pair
think-pair-share
think-pair-sharing
top pair
twin prime pair
twisted pair
underpair
unpair