Word.ws English Dictionary

pair

UK/pɛə//pɛɹ/

pair noun: two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.

pair: two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of
Image: Chelsea porcelain factory, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pair (plural pairs or (archaic or dialectal) pair)

  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; Charles Dickens], chapter II, in Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. […], volume II, London: John Macrone, […], published 1836...
    • 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, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 209
    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.
  7. (informal) A double play, two outs recorded in one play.
    • They turned a pair to end the fifth.
  8. (informal) 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. (slang) A pair of breasts.
    • She's got a gorgeous pair.
  11. (slang) A pair of testicles.
    • Grow a pair, mate.
  12. (Australia) 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.
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  1. 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.
    • There were two pairs on the final vote.
    • 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'.1999, Gyles Brandreth, chapter 3, in Breaking the Code
  2. (archaic) A number of things resembling one another, or belonging together; a set.
    • 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.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...
    • 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.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...
  3. 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.

Verb (1)

pair (third-person singular simple present pairs, present participle pairing, simple past and past participle paired)

  1. (transitive) 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”, in John Wilson Croker, editor, The Works of Alexander Pope, new edition, volume I, J. Murray, published 1871, pages 94–95
  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 transceiver.2015, Microsoft, “How-to: Keyboards”, in http://www.microsoft.com, retrieved 21 Feb 2015
  3. (transitive) To bring two (animals, notably dogs) together for mating.
  4. (intransitive) 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. (slang) To engage (oneself) with another of opposite opinions not to vote on a particular question or class of questions.
  6. (intransitive) 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 there can be in Variety, / And would not if it could.1707, Nicholas Rowe, The Royal Convert, 2nd edition, Jacob Tonson, published 1714, page 46

Verb (2)

pair (third-person singular simple present pairs, present participle pairing, simple past and past participle paired)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) 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 “Gest Hystoriale” of the Destruction of Troy, N. Trübner & Co., translation of Historia destructionis Troiae by Guido...
    • 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, is vnlooked for ; And euer it mends Some, and paires Other […]1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Innouations”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC, page 140
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To become worse, to deteriorate.

Proper noun capitalized: Pair

Pair (plural Pairs)

  1. A surname.

pair meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

pair in Hindi

two similar or identical things
जोड़ा joṛā

pair in Tamil

இணை, சோடி, ஜோடி

pair in Marathi

two similar or identical things
जोडी joḍī
two people in a relationship
जोडी joḍī, युगुल yugul
couple of working animals attached to work together
जोडी joḍī

pair in Urdu

two similar or identical things
جوڑا joṛā
More languagesFewer languages
pair in Bengali
জোড়া jōṛa
pair in Telugu
ద్వంద్వము dvandvamu, జత jata, జోడు jōḍu, జంట jaṇṭa
pair in Malayalam
ജോഡി jōḍi, മൈഥുനം maithunaṁ, ഇണ iṇa
pair in Kannada
ಜೊತೆ jote
pair in Punjabi
جوڑا joṛā, ਜੋੜਾ joṛā
pair in Gujarati
જોડ joṛ
pair in Odia
ଜୋଡା joḍā
pair in Sanskrit
द्वंद्व dvaṃdva, मिथुन mithuna
pair in Sinhala
ජෝඩුව jōḍuwa
pair in Assamese
হাল hal
pair in Nepali
जोडी, जोडीमा
pair in Pashto
جوړه ǰoṛá, زوج zawǰ
pair in Arabic
زَوْج zawj
pair in Malay
pasangan
pair in Persian
جفت joft, زوج zowj
pair in Thai
คู่ kûu, คู่หนึ่ง kûu-nʉ̀ng
pair in Vietnamese
đôi, cặp
pair in Myanmar
ဒွေးဘော် dwe:bhau, ယမက ya.ma.ka., အတွဲ a.twai:
Dzongkha
ཆ cha

Examples of pair in a sentence

  • I couldn't decide which of the pair of designer shirts I preferred, so I bought the pair.
  • 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 Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The...
  • 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.2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:
  • '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:

All 40 example sentences with pair

Synonyms of pair

All synonyms of pair

Forms of pair

Noun
pluralpairs
plural (archaic, dialectal)pair
Verb
third-person singular presentpairs
present participlepairing
past participlepaired
pastpaired
Proper noun
pluralPairs

Past tense of pair: paired

Plural of pair: pairs

Origin of pair

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”)

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

From the German surname, probably a variant of Baer, from the noun Bär (“bear”).

Words formed from pair

Phrases with pair

64 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with pair

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pair

What does pair mean?
Pair means two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
What is pair in Hindi?
Pair in Hindi is जोड़ा (joṛā). See Pair meaning in Hindi.
How do you use pair in a sentence?
I couldn't decide which of the pair of designer shirts I preferred, so I bought the pair.
What part of speech is pair?
Pair can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce pair?
Pair is pronounced /pɛə/ (UK).
What is the plural of pair?
The plural of pair is pairs.

Words near pair in the dictionary

  1. painy
  2. paiock
  3. paiocke
  4. Paipai
  5. paipo
  6. pair
  7. pair and share
  8. pair and shares
  9. pair bond
  10. pair bonding
  11. pair bondings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pair (page history and authors); Pair (page history and authors); pair (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); జంట (Telugu) (page history and authors); ഇണ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಜೊತೆ (Kannada) (page history and authors); جوڑا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); જોડ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ජෝඩුව (Sinhala) (page history and authors); হাল (Assamese) (page history and authors); pair (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pair.ogg, en-au-pair.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pair.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pair. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.