Definition of "pair"

pair¹

/pɛə(ɹ)/

noun
plural pairs or (archaic or dialectal) pair
1. Two similar or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
  Quotations
  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, page 266
  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, […], part I, page 209
  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 Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 210
  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.
  2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18
  1. One of the constituent items that make up a pair.
    Quotations
    [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.
3. Used with binary nouns (often in the plural to indicate multiple instances, since such nouns are plural only, except in some technical contexts)
4. A couple of working animals attached to work together, as by a yoke.
5. (card games) A poker hand that contains two cards of identical rank, which cannot also count as a better hand.
6. (cricket) A score of zero runs (a duck) in both innings of a two-innings match.
7. (baseball, informal) A double play, two outs recorded in one play.
8. (baseball, informal) A doubleheader, two games played on the same day between the same teams
9. (rowing) A boat for two sweep rowers.
10. (slang) A pair of breasts
11. (slang) A pair of testicles
12. (Australia, politics) 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.
13. 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.
14. (archaic) A number of things resembling one another, or belonging together; a set.
  Quotations
  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 Richard Marriot, published 1679, Act I, scene i, page 341
  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 Friendship of the New Pupil”, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, page 74
15. (kinematics) 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
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.
  Quotations
  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. (computing) to link two electronic devices wirelessly together, especially through a protocol such as Bluetooth
  Quotations
  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 2015-02-21
3. (transitive) To bring two (animals, notably dogs) together for mating.
4. (intransitive) To come together for mating.
  Quotations
  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. (politics, 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.
  Quotations
  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

pair²

/pɛə(ɹ)/

verb
third-person singular simple present pairs, present participle pairing, simple past and past participle paired
1. (obsolete, transitive) To impair, to make worse.
  Quotations
  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.Why endure this misery, and hurt yourself? / End this disease, my dear brother, / That pains you and impairs your 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 delle Colonne (in Medieval Latin), published 1869, page 117
  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, page 140
  '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
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To become worse, to deteriorate.

Definition of "pair"

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pair2

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pair¹

pair²