pair
/pɛə/
"pair" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pair” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,955 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,955
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pair |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɛə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,955 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pair” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pair is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɛə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,955 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 16 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for pair, with forms such as "apir", "pairr", and "piar". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PR", "pi", "per", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English paire, from Old French paire, from Latin paria (“equals”), neuter plural of par (“pair”). Related to pār (“equal”, adjective). Compare Saterland Frisian Poor (“pair”), West Frisian pear (“pair”), Dutch paar (“pair”), German Paar (“pair”)… The correct English form is pair, spelled P-A-I-R.
Definition
- 1Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
- 2Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of.
- 3Two people in a relationship, partnership or friendship.
- 4Used with binary nouns (often in the plural to indicate multiple instances, since such nouns are plural only, except in some technical contexts).
- 5A couple of working animals attached to work together, as by a yoke.
- 6A poker hand that contains two cards of identical rank, which cannot also count as a better hand.
- 7A score of zero runs (a duck) in both innings of a two-innings match.
- 8A double play, two outs recorded in one play.
- 9A doubleheader, two games played on the same day between the same teams.
- 10A boat for two sweep rowers.
- 11A pair of breasts.
- 12A pair of testicles.
- 13The exclusion of one member of a parliamentary party from a vote, if a member of the other party is absent for important personal reasons.
- 14Two 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.
- 15A number of things resembling one another, or belonging together; a set.
- 16In 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.
Etymology
From Middle English paire, from Old French paire, from Latin paria (“equals”), neuter plural of par (“pair”). Related to pār (“equal”, adjective). Compare Saterland Frisian Poor (“pair”), West Frisian pear (“pair”), Dutch paar (“pair”), German Paar (“pair”), Italian paio (“pair”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apir,pairr,piar,ppair
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pair - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “pair”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-I-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pɛə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “PR” - see the side-by-side comparison. pair vs PR
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.