Other forms: pairs, paired, pairing
A pair is two things that belong together and are used at the same time. Shoes, gloves, socks.
English does something odd with the word, because some objects made of two joined halves are always a pair and never a single thing: a pair of trousers, a pair of scissors, a pair of glasses. There is only one object in each case. It also means two people working together, so a pair of detectives, and the verb means to put two things together, as in pairing socks or pairing a phone with a speaker.
1nounpairTwo matching things used together.~88%
“He bought a new pair of boots.”
2verbputTo put two things or people together.~12%
“The app would not pair with the speaker.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
A pair is two things reckoned equal. Latin paria is the plural of pār, equal, so the word counts them as matched before it counts them as two.
Latin
paria — equals
Old French
paire
Middle English
paire
English, today
pair
Built from
From Middle English paire, from Old French paire, from Latin paria (“equals”), neuter plural of par (“pair”). Related to pār (“equal”). Compare stq Poor (“pair”), West Frisian pear (“pair”), Dutch paar (“pair”), German Paar (“pair”), Italian paio (“pair”)
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA