par

Forms

par m or f (masculine and feminine plural pares)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish par, inherited from Latin pār (“equal, alike; a pair”).^[2][3][4][1] In Latin the adjective was already used as a noun for a pair of persons or things.^[2][5]

The same word is Portuguese par, Catalan par, French pair “equal, peer”, French paire “pair” and Italian paio.^[6][7] Corominas notes that it has left traces in all the western Romance languages, but that only Portuguese uses the same form in all the senses of the Spanish word.^[2]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear.^[8][1] De Vaan considers that it may go back, like Umbrian pars (“(it is) prescribed”), to a Proto-Italic stem *parVs, which would explain the long vowel, but finds no good etymology for it.^[8] The traditional comparison with Proto-Indo-European *perh₂- (“to exchange, sell”) fits the meaning badly.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word already in Berceo, both as an adjective “equal” and as a noun “pair”.^[2][3] The Fuero de Madrid (between 1141 and 1235, in a copy of the first half of the 13th century) counts horseshoes in pairs: XXX & I par a morabetino; et asnares, LX pares “thirty-one pairs for a morabetino; and for donkeys, sixty pairs”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The noun has been in general use at every period.^[2] The adjective soon became archaic: before the end of the Middle Ages it was literary, or limited to special uses, above all “divisible by two”, which Nebrija already gives.^[2][10] Where par still meant “equal”, writers said par igual for clarity, and in most uses the derivative parejo replaced it.^[2] Medieval Spanish had the phrases a par de, en par de and par de “beside”, and the later a la par de is first recorded in 1599.^[2][3]

Covarrubias in 1611 gave un par de zapatos “a pair of shoes”, ir a la par “to go level”, sin par “without equal” and the game of pares y nones “odds and evens”.^[11] Cervantes's la sin par Dulcinea imitates a phrase of the Amadís, and the Twelve Peers of France were called pares because they were equal in valour and rank.^[12] Autoridades quotes Juan de Mena for the adjective, Par en el ánimo, no en la fortuna “equal in spirit, not in fortune”, and gives the noun and the arithmetical sense.^[13]

The plural las pares is a popular name for the placenta together with the membranes expelled after birth, and Nebrija records it in 1495.^[2][3] In Fuerteventura the singular la par is used.^[14] The Academy added the title of high nobility “peer” by 1884, and the DLE now also has the senses of golf, the card game mus and electricity.^[15][4] Un par de also stands for a small, vague number, two or three.^[16][1][17] In Cuba and Puerto Rico de tres pares means “extraordinary”.^[18]

Timeline

• 1141–1235 – the Fuero de Madrid counts horseshoes by the par.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses the word as an adjective and as a noun.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives par “two equal things” and “even (number)”, and pares “afterbirth”.^[10][2]
• 1512 – the first record from the Americas, 1 par de tijeras “1 pair of scissors”, in Puerto Rico.^[19]
• 1599 – a la par de “beside” is first recorded.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records sin par and pares y nones.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the sense “peer”.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. equal, entirely alike; mostly in negative phrases: una belleza sin par.^[4][16]
2. (anatomy) Of an organ: matching a symmetrical one on the other side of the body.^[4][20]
3. (mathematics) even, divisible by two.^[1][21]

Noun

1. A pair or couple: two persons, animals or things of the same kind: Necesito un par de calcetines limpios.^[4][1]
2. A couple, a few, two or three: Volveré en un par de horas.^[16][1]
3. A pair of draught mules or oxen.^[4]
4. In some countries, a member of the high nobility; a peer.^[4][1]
5. In the card game mus, two cards of the same value; in the plural, the third round of the game.^[4]
6. (construction) Each of the two timbers of a roof truss that follow the slope of the roof; a rafter.^[4]
7. (golf) par: the standard number of strokes for a course or hole.^[4]
8. (electricity) A junction of two metals or alloys that produces a voltage when heated.^[4]
9. (mathematics) An even number.^[4]
10. (feminine plural) The placenta.^[4]
11. (physics) A couple of forces, in par de fuerzas.^[4][1]

Word family

• pareja
• parejo
• parear
• aparear
• emparejar
• aparejar

Related words

• dispar
• impar
• paridad
• comparar
• Latin pār
• Portuguese par

Usage notes

The DLE has a separate par², from Latin per, a preposition “by” used in oaths, as in ¡par Dios!^[22][4] Old Spanish used it in the Cid, Par aquesta barba “by this beard”, and Sancho swears par Dios and par diez in the Quijote, diez being a euphemism for Dios.^[9][12] García de Diego lists Old Spanish per and par as forms of por.^[23] Common phrases are a la par “at the same time”, de par en par “wide open” and sin par “matchless”.^[16][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 387
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. par
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. par
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 522
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4792
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. par
10. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. par
11. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1192
12. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 826
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. par
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. par
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 787
16. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. par
17. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. par
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. par
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. par
20. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. par
21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. par
22. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. par
23. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4929