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pairing

pairing

10 3.1
Grouping two things or people that go well together
  • noun
  • /ˈpɛərɪŋ/
translation icon : emparejamiento
  • The young girls choose the most handsome men, and many of these pairings result in marriage.
  • random pairings
  • possible pairings
  • book pairings

Good conversation, like good food, is often made delicious by pairing of contrasting elements.

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Examples

  • Good conversation, like good food, is often made delicious by pairing of contrasting elements.

  • So there's a kind of pairing between these two things.

  • I want to do a pairing with Buzz.

  • How do you think about the the pairing between ideas and execution?

  • So what we have is this pairing between simulations and text.

  • Rather than random, these pairings happened in repeated ways that expressed continued concerns about color, history, and background.

    Academic text (2003)
  • All our pairings, whether married couples or singles, are by mutual consent.

  • It's the pairings for the combat tomorrow in the palace enclosure.

  • Complementing the chefs' creations will be wine pairings selected by a sophisticated wine-guy type.

    Blog text (34)
  • The chef recommended a perfect pairing of red wine with the steak dish.

Synonyms

matching
vspairing
86 2.3

The act of putting similar things together

groups items into twos regardless of close similarity
matchup
vspairing
80 3.7

A pairing of teams, people, or things to compete and be compared

groups items in twos more generally not only for contests or comparison
twinning
vspairing
  • UK
1 4.1

Producing two young at one birth or pairing two places like cities

is a general act of grouping rather than forming official long term bonds

How Well-Matched

matched
2.6
pairing
10 3.1
to mismatch
13 4.2

Surface Forms

pairing singular
pairings plural

Morphology

pairing = pair (transparent) = pair + ing

The noun is transparently formed from the verb 'pair' plus '-ing', referring to the act or process of pairing.

Etymology

The word pairing comes from pair, which comes from the old root par meaning 'two' or 'equal', just like a 'pair of shoes' is two things that go together. So pairing is the act of matching two items or people to work together or complement each other.