Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

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

Example Sentences

I couldn't decide which of the pair of designer shirts I preferred, so I bought the pair.

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.

Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load.

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.

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.

Spouses should make a great pair.

a pair of scissors; two pairs of spectacles; several pairs of jeans

A pair is harder to drive than two mounts with separate riders.

Word Forms

• pairs
• pair
• pairing
• paired

Synonyms for pair

Related Words

When Should You Use Pair?

Use pair when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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