Basic+ Word of the Day: pair

pair (noun) LISTEN

A pair of jeans

If you have a pair of something, it means that you have two things that you use together. They usually look the same.

  • She has 30 pairs of shoes.

With some words that end in –s, we use pair to talk about one thing, not two. We do this because they are made from two things. For example, jeans are made from two legs.

  • He’s wearing a pair of jeans.

A pair can also mean ‘two people.’

  • I want you to work in pairs. (=I want you to work in groups of two.)

Don't confuse it with

A pear is a green or yellow fruit that grows on trees.

In pop culture

The Wizard of Oz is a movie about a girl who arrives in a strange land. She wants to go home, and she thinks that the Wizard of Oz will help her. When she arrives in Oz, she finds a pair of red shoes, but she doesn’t know that they’re magic. In the end, the Good Witch tells her that she can use the shoes to go home. She has to touch the shoes together three times and say, “There’s no place like home.” What changes when she goes back home?

There are other meanings of pair.

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