pair

/\pɛʁ\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#7,212

in French word usage

Misspellings

4

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

pair is aFrenchnoun. It means: Personne de même condition et de même rang dans l’état. Pronounced \pɛʁ\. It ranks #7,212 in French word frequency. Often confused with Pr and pi.

Key facts for pair
PropertyValue
Headwordpair
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pɛʁ\
Letters4
Frequency rank#7,212
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of pair in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for pair is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pɛʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #7,212 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for pair, with forms such as "apir", "pairr", and "piar". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Pr", "pi", "pas", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is pair, spelled P-A-I-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Personne de même condition et de même rang dans l’état.
  2. 2
    Titre de dignité porté au Moyen Âge par les grands vassaux du roi.
  3. 3
    Seigneur qui possédait des terres érigées en pairies et qui avaient droit de séance au parlement de Paris.
  4. 4
    Membre de la Chambre des pairs en France de 1815 à 1848.
  5. 5
    Membre de la Chambre des Lords en Angleterre.
  6. 6
    Mâle ou femelle de certains oiseaux, et particulièrement de la tourterelle, en parlant de l’un par rapport à l’autre.
  7. 7
    Parité de change qui résulte de la comparaison du prix d’une espèce dans un pays avec le prix de la même espèce dans un autre pays.
  8. 8
    Personne faisant le même métier, occupant la même profession, une fonction similaire.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: apir,pairr,piar,ppair

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for pair

Misspelling Variants of "pair"

apir4pairr5piar4ppair5
Misspelling Variants of "pair"

Frequency rank: #7,212 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "pair"?
"pair" is spelled P-A-I-R. The IPA pronunciation is \pɛʁ\.
What does "pair" mean?
As a noun, "pair" means: Personne de même condition et de même rang dans l’état.
What words are commonly confused with "pair"?
"pair" is commonly confused with "Pr", "pi", "pas". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "pair"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pair" is \pɛʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pair" come from?
"pair" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.