noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The combination or union of two things. countable, uncountable

   "The seeds were adjusted to make sure that there were good pairings for the tennis tournament."

2. 2
   the act of grouping things or people in pairs wordnet
3. 3
   An agreement between two members of a legislative body holding opposite opinions to refrain from voting, so that both may absent themselves. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   the act of pairing a male and female for reproductive purposes wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of pair form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

couplingagglomerationagglutinationaggregationambiguityambivalence

Example

More examples

"I'm never going to take your advice on pairing cheese."

Related phrases

accepted pairingassortative pairingaxiom of pairingcrack pairingpairing energypairing functionpairing offpairing time

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.