pair

Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.

Noun

  1. Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
    • 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. - 1834 February, “Boz” [pseudonym;...
    • Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load. - 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV,...
    • 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. - 1899 February, Joseph...

    1. One of the constituent items that make up a pair.

      • [S]he had finished the second sock, and pulled its pair out of the bag before handing them to her husband. - 1992, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Marking Time: Volume 2 of The Cazalet Chronicle, page 74:
      • Must be good at athletics, home repairs, making mince interesting and finding the pair to the other glove. - 1996, Kathy Lette, Mad Cows, page 219:
  2. Two people in a relationship, partnership or friendship.
    • Spouses should make a great pair.
  3. Used with binary nouns (often in the plural to indicate multiple instances, since such nouns are plural only, except in some technical contexts).
    • a pair of scissors; two pairs of spectacles; several pairs of jeans
  4. A couple of working animals attached to work together, as by a yoke.
    • A pair is harder to drive than two mounts with separate riders.
  5. A poker hand that contains two cards of identical rank, which cannot also count as a better hand.
  6. A score of zero runs (a duck) in both innings of a two-innings match.

    Synonyms: pair of spectacles spectacles

  7. A double play, two outs recorded in one play.
    • They turned a pair to end the fifth.
  8. A doubleheader, two games played on the same day between the same teams.
    • The Pirates took a pair from the Phillies.
  9. A boat for two sweep rowers.
  10. A pair of breasts.
    • She's got a gorgeous pair.
  11. A pair of testicles.
    • Grow a pair, mate.
  12. 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.

Origin

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”)

Forms

pairs pair

Synonyms

duo dyad couple brace twosome duplet

Derived

acid-base pair alpha pair another pair of shoes aspectual pair base pair base-pair breathing bottom pair Breit-Wheeler pair production byte pair encoding carriage and pair Church 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

Verb Entry 2

  1. To group into one or more sets of two.
    • The wedding guests were paired boy/girl and groom's party/bride's party.
    • Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame / Inspired young Perseus with a gen’rous flame; / Turtles and doves of diff’ring hues unite, / And glossy jet is paired with shining white. - a. 1744, Alexander Pope, “Sappho to Phaon”,...
  2. to link two electronic devices wirelessly together, especially through a protocol such as Bluetooth.
    • It was not possible to pair my smartphone with an incompatible smartwatch.
    • If your computer has a built-in, non-Microsoft transceiver, you can pair the device directly to the computer by using your computer’s Bluetooth software configuration program but without using the Microsoft Bluetooth...
  3. To bring two (animals, notably dogs) together for mating.
  4. To come together for mating.
    • The raven, in short, when he pairs, which he does at the earliest moment permitted by the laws of ravendom, pairs for life […] - 1883, Alexander Stewart, Nether Lochaber, page 112:
  5. To engage (oneself) with another of opposite opinions not to vote on a particular question or class of questions.
  6. To suit; to fit, as a counterpart.
    • My Heart was made to fit and pair with thine, / Simple and plain, and fraught with artleſs Tenderneſs; / Form’d to receive one Love, and only one, / But pleas’d and proud, and dearly fond of that, / It knows not what...

Forms

pairs pairing paired

Related

parity couple

Derived

mispair pairable pairing pair off pair up repair

Verb obsolete, transitive

  1. To impair, to make worse.
    • Why dreghis þou þis dole, & deris þi seluyn? / Lefe of þis Langore, as my lefe brother, / Þat puttes þe to payne and peires þi sight. - a. 1376?, Sir Hugh Eglintoun (uncertain), transl., edited by George Panton, The...
    • It were good therefore, that Men in their Innouations, would follow the Example of Time it ſelfe ; which indeed Innouateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees, ſcarce to be perceiued : For otherwiſe, whatſoeuer is New,...
    • 'No faith so fast', quoth she, 'but flesh does pair' - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
  2. To become worse, to deteriorate.

Origin

From Middle English pairen, peiren, shortened form of apeiren, empeiren, from Old French empeirier, empoirier, from Late Latin peiōrō.

Forms

pairs pairing paired