two people considered as a unit
"The couple sat together on the bench, looking like a perfect pair."
a poker hand with 2 cards of the same value
"When I finally hit two kings on the flop, my opponent bet big thinking he had a better pair to win the pot."
Two similar or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
"The lost pair of shoes was found tucked inside an old suitcase in the attic."
In plain English: A pair is two things that go together and are usually the same.
"I bought a new pair of shoes for the hike."
Usage: Use "pair" to describe two matching items that belong together, such as a pair of shoes or a pair of scissors. It is often followed by the word "of" when specifying the type of object being counted.
To group into one or more sets of two.
"The heavy rain paired his already slippery path into a muddy quagmire that was impossible to navigate."
To impair, to make worse.
In plain English: To pair something means to put two things together so they match or go well with each other.
"Please pair these shoes together before putting them in the box."
Usage: Do not confuse the verb "pair," which means to match two things together, with "impair," which means to weaken or damage. Use "pair" when combining items into sets of two, but never use it to describe making a situation worse.
A surname.
"My neighbor's last name is Pair, and he always jokes about how it sounds like a matching set of shoes."
The word pair comes from the Latin paria, meaning "equals," and entered English through Old French. Its original sense of two matching things remains unchanged today.