Which Pair Of Words Shares The Same Word Root?

Adjacent in a series of posts exploring some of the 'roots' and 'routes' of English vocabulary.

Pair (noun and verb) has made its way to us from Latin pār, meaning 'equal'. Likewise as describing a prepare of 2 identical or about-identical items – due east.1000. a pair of shoes, a pair of eyes – it is likewise used for certain single items consisting of two symmetrical or similar parts which are physically joined together – east.g. a pair of trousers, a pair of spectacles, a pair of pair of scissors; in many languages, the names of these items are unproblematic atypical nouns.

Pair also forms the phrasal verbs pair off and pair upwardly.

Par itself is used in a number of phrases in which it means the usual or expected standard: below par, under par, not up to par, on a par with, par for the course.

Parity means equality, specially in certain legal, financial and scientific contexts. The Latin phrase primus inter pares – get-go among equals – is sometimes used in English.

Your peers are the people who are the aforementioned historic period equally you, or who are in the same social or professional group; peer group and peer pressure level are common compounds with peer, and contributors to journals will also be familiar with the term peer review. Someone or something that is peerless is the best – i.e. has no equal. In the UK, a peer is also, rather surprisingly, a fellow member of a high social course who has a title such every bit Lord – in other words, someone is not at all equal to the majority of the population or who is, perchance, 'more than equal than others'; the term was originally practical to such people because they were equal to each other in condition.

To compare was originally to couple or lucifer, or bring together; its derivatives include comparison, comparative, insufficiently, comparable, comparably, incomparable, decidedly.

To disparage (derived substantive: disparagement) was originally to lower in rank or degrade. Disparate has a different origin, simply its meaning has also been influenced by clan with dispar- 'unequal' and therefore dissimilar.

The word umpire – historically someone who is not the equal of others can therefore be neutral in deciding in disputes between them – has reached us later taking a incorrect turning on its route through the ages. In the 14th century information technology was noumper, from French nonper, meaning not equal, just a century later it had go oumpere, as a result of the mistaken partition of a noumpere every bit an oumpere. (There are other words, such equally adder, apron and nickname, with like histories.)

The noun peer and the verb peer (look carefully) are homonyms; they merely happen to have the same pronunciation and the same spelling, just they are non related.

Pair, pear and pare are homophones, and so are peer and pier; they have the same pronunciation but different spellings and, of grade, different meanings.

Next in this serial: band, bend, bind

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