parityn.1
/ˈparᵻti/, U.S. /ˈpɛrədi/ I. The state or condition of being equal in any respect.
1.
a. Equality of rank, status, or treatment; spec. the recognition of no distinction between the members or between the ministers of a church. Also: an instance of this.
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society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > one's social equal(s) > specifically among members or ministers of a church
parity1572
1572 in D. Neal Hist. Purit. (1732) I. v. 284 There ought to be a Parity among the ministers in the Church.
1593 T. Bilson Perpetual Govt. Christes Church 413 What conflictes and uproares your paritie of Presbyters will breede.
1642 King Charles I Answer XIX. Propos. Parl. 22 The Common people..grow weary of Journey~work, and set up for themselves, call Parity and Independence, Liberty.
1709 T. Hearne Remarks & Coll. (1885) 5 Mar. II. 173 To..introduce Presbyterian parity..among our Clergy.
1767 R. Bentley Philodamus iv. vii. 52 Time and familiarity should shrink you From parity into a mean dependence.
1841 I. D'Israeli Amenities Lit. II. 339 With the disciples of parity, a free election..was a first state principle.
1889 Harper's Mag. Aug. 437/2 A large number of theologians..thought it proper to abandon the system of parity hitherto observed toward the different faiths.
1903 F. W. Maitland in Cambr. Mod. Hist. II. xvi. 594 A call for ‘parity’, for an equality among all the ministers of God's Word.
1997 ARTSatlantic Summer 42/2 Canadians..never quite accept..that they've achieved parity with their American counterparts.
b. parity of esteem n. the state or condition of being regarded as equal; spec. the condition by which administratively comparable educational institutions are regarded as equal.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > equality or equivalence > [noun] > equal footing or par
footing1657
par1662
parity of esteem1943
1943 Curriculum & Exam. in Secondary School (Board of Educ.) i. iii. 14 Parity of esteem..cannot be conferred by administrative decree nor by equality cost per pupil.
1965 M. Frayn Tin Men vii. 38 He..affected a stooped, lounging gait to establish parity of esteem with the aristocracy.
1974 Listener 23 May 661/3 If they [sc. polytechnics] could accept the challenge that they can offer a different kind of degree from well-established universities, they might get something like parity of esteem.
2000 Tuam (County Galway) Herald & Western Advertiser 8 July 19/3 Dr. Kelly, who has been a member of the Board since 1987, added that he would push for parity of esteem for Roscommon.
2.
a. Equality in amount or extent; equivalence in size, number, etc. Also: an instance of this.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > equality or equivalence > [noun]
comparison1340
evennessa1398
evenhead?a1400
equipollencec1430
pareil?c1450
equalityc1460
comparation1483
egalness1526
equalness1530
equivalency1535
eveningc1540
equivalencea1542
indifferency1569
owelty1579
coequality1583
mateship1593
equal1596
adequation1605
parity1609
parility1610
matchableness1611
equipollency1623
equiparance1624
egality1628
equipage1633
comparitya1635
omniparity1635
peership1641
exequation1656
equipoise1658
equipotency1658
countervalue1660
adequateness1664
commensurablenessa1676
peerage1681
égalité1794
peerdom1891
1609 R. Cawdrey Table Alphabet. (ed. 2) Paritie, equalitie, likenesse.
a1632 J. Webster & W. Rowley Cure for Cuckold (1661) i. i. sig. B Equality in Birth, parity in years.
1656 J. Bramhall Replic. to Bishop of Chalcedon v. 190 For the clearing of which point, I shewed that there was a parity of power among the Apostles.
1704 Narr. Sir G. Rooke's Late Voy. to Mediterranean 6 There might be otherwise a Parity of Strength.
1783 W. F. Martyn Geogr. Mag. 2 326 Men and women [in marriage] are obliged to pay a proper regard to the parity of years.
1842 W. R. Grove Correl. Physical Forces 47 The bodies in which this parity of force has been discovered..are small compared with the exceptions.
1962 Meanjin Q. 355 You refer no doubt to the remarkable parity of primary votes between all candidates, including myself?
1990 Guardian 28 May 18/4 Since neither country shares any racial characteristics nor any parity in food—America has lots, Russia doesn't—Superpowerdom itself is obviously fattening.
b. spec. A state in which two countries potentially hostile to one another have equal strategic resources (formerly esp. with reference to the nuclear capabilities of the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R.).
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society > armed hostility > military equipment > arming or equipping with weapons > [noun] > arms race > state of having equal resources
parity1955
1955 Bull. Atomic Scientists Mar. 100/2 To try to achieve parity in conventional weapons would mean such a regimentation of our industry and manpower that we would lose the freedom we seek to preserve.
1965 H. Kahn On Escalation 295 The term ‘parity’ is shorthand for ‘nuclear parity’ or ‘strategic parity’. Parity exists when neither side obtains any important strategic technical advantages..from its central war forces.
1971 Human World Nov. 20 In the last five or six years the Russians have achieved nuclear-missile parity with the United States.
1991 Economist 7 Dec. 24/3 As it moved on to achieve nuclear and space-age parity with the West, it found that the West had moved on.
3. Equality of nature, character, or tendency; equivalence, likeness, similarity; analogy; parallelism. Frequently in parity of reason (also reasoning). Also: an instance of this.
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the world > relative properties > relationship > similarity > [noun]
anlikenessOE
ylikenessOE
likenessa1250
likeliheada1393
resemblancea1393
likeliness?a1425
similitudec1425
semblingc1440
alikenessc1450
assemblance1485
agreement1495
likelihood1495
agreeance1525
analogy1542
simility1543
semblablenessc1550
semblance1576
nearness1577
vicinity1594
simile1604
assimilation1605
consimilitude1610
parity1612
bly1615
similarity1615
connaturality1621
similiancy1622
connaturalnessa1628
reasemblance1638
consimilarity1658
similariness1669
similarness1670
consimility1680
kindredship1733
family likeness1759
family resemblance1785
cognateness1816
feel1892
1612 J. Cotta Short Discouerie Dangers Ignorant Practisers Physicke i. ii. 17 This he that cannot do, must..by mistaking parities for imparities disioyne helpes better vnited.
1620 T. Venner Via Recta iii. 55 I thinke that there is a neerer parity of nature betweene the flesh of Fallow-Deere, and of the Red.
1646 P. Bulkley Gospel-covenant i. 33 Argument..from the paritie and likenesse between the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace.
1652 M. Nedham tr. J. Selden Of Dominion of Sea i. iv. 23 Truly there is a paritie of Reason [L. parilis..ratio] also for this.
1696 R. Bentley Of Revel. & Messias 23 We may inferr by parity of argument.
1734 G. Berkeley Three Dialogues Hylas & Philonous (rev. ed.) iii, in Treat. Princ. Human Knowl. (new ed.) 298 There is..no parity of case between Spirit and Matter.
1775 J. Adair Hist. Amer. Indians 52 I shall now shew a farther parity, between the hebrew language, and the Aboriginal American dialects.
1834 R. Mudie Feathered Tribes Brit. Islands I. 172 By parity of reasoning, that house on which the magpie perches, is in no danger of falling.
1904 H. James Golden Bowl I. xxi. 353 The thought that had been growing with him a positive obsession..began to throb..under this brush of her having, by perfect parity of imagination, the match for it.
1992 M. Jefferson Criminal Law (BNC) 307 By parity of reasoning with Chan Wai Lam v R the accused who deceives the victim into writing a cheque in his favour is not guilty.
II. Technical uses.
4. † a. The property of a number of being even and not odd. Obsolete.
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the world > relative properties > number > mathematical number or quantity > [noun] > particular qualities > parity > evenness
paritya1620
a1620 M. Fotherby Atheomastix (1622) ii. x. §4. 308 It [sc. unity] is not variable, by parity; or imparitie.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica iii. v. 115 If we survey the totall set of animals, we may in their legs..observe an equality of length, and parity of numeration; that is, not any to have an odde leg. View more context for this quotation
b. Mathematics. The property of an integer by virtue of which it is odd or even. Also: (Computing) the property of using an odd or an even number of digits.
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the world > relative properties > number > mathematical number or quantity > [noun] > particular qualities > parity
parity1879
1879 Amer. Jrnl. Math. 2 219 In either case, therefore, the sign, which depends on the parity of the number of even cycles, is reversed.
1920 Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 21 267 h and k are any integers other than zero and of opposite parity.
1960 G. N. Lance Numerical Methods for High Speed Computers i. 10 The extended word should always have odd parity unless binary digits have been lost or gained during the transfer of the word from one part of the machine to another.
1966 R. R. Arnold et al. Introd. Data Processing xiv. 268/2 Codes that use an odd number of bits are said to have an odd parity. Codes that use an even number of bits are said to have an even parity.
1975 J. Finkel Computer-aided Experimentation xvii. 374 Parity is computed by adding the total number of ‘ones’ in a word. If the total is an even number and even parity is desired, the parity bit is stored as a ‘zero’.
1984 A. Baker Conc. Introd. Theory of Numbers viii. 85 Since z is odd, we see that a and b have opposite parity.
c. Physics. The property of having or being a spatial wave function that either remains the same (has even parity) or changes sign (has odd parity) when a change of sign is applied to the coordinates. Also (with distinguishing word): a similar property with respect to certain other symmetry operations; the value of the quantum number (eigenvalue) corresponding to such a property (+1 for even parity, −1 for odd parity).
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the world > matter > physics > quantum theory > quantum mechanics > symmetry, conserved properly > [noun] > parity
parity1939
1939 Physical Rev. 56 526/2 Only the selection rules for J and parity would remain valid (ΔJ = ±1 or 0, no change in parity allowed).
1955 R. D. Evans Atomic Nucleus iv. 174 The parity of an isolated system is a constant of its motion and cannot be changed by any internal processes. Only if radiation or a particle enters or leaves the system..can the parity change.
1957 Times 11 Nov. 11/5 The launching of an Earth satellite is of less fundamental importance than..the failure of the law of parity conservation.
1968 M. S. Livingston Particle Physics vii. 134 The parity of a wave function representing a system of particles includes the intrinsic parities of each of the individual particles and also depends on the relative angular momentum of the several particles.
1970 A. D. Martin & T. D. Spearman Elem. Particle Theory v. 237 The eigenstates of C have eigenvalue either +1 or −1, that is they have either even or odd charge parity.
1989 F. Close in P. Davies New Physics xiv. 403/2 The mesons classified by properties such as parity (P) (behaviour under spatial reflection) and charge conjugation (C) (particle–antiparticle symmetry).
2002 Science 12 July 185/1 Similarly..experiments should be identical even if you swap right and left, up and down, front and back, a property known as parity, or P, symmetry.
d. Computing. Short for parity bit n. at Compounds 2.
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society > computing and information technology > programming language > program or code > [noun] > bit level codes > parity bit
parity digit1954
parity bit1955
parity1966
1966 Communications ACM 9 695/2 The overriding consideration affecting the choice of character structure is compatibility with serial-by-bit data communication in order to minimize confusion. An eight bit character structure (7 ASCII bits and parity) satisfies this requirement.
1992 CU Amiga May 195/1 Set the Baud rate to the highest your Modem has.., set the configuration to word length 8 bits, no parity and 1 stop bit (8N1), and go into terminal mode.
5.
a. Equivalence in another currency; (in early use) spec. the price in one currency equivalent to that in another.
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society > trade and finance > money > value of money > [noun] > relative value of different currencies
par1601
rate1622
parity1860
agio1875
1860 Times 30 July 10/3 Skippers see no inducement to venture at present prices, while Liverpool remains so much below the parity of the markets on this side.
1886 Times 24 June 11/5 Public sales of wool..were held in Berlin..when some 1800 bales..are reported to have been..sold at full London parity.
1939 J. B. Morton Bonfire of Weeds ii. 60 The recovery in the sterling price of Gold the other day practically brought it to parity with the dollar.
1988 R. Jenkins Baldwin (BNC) 125 If they were to try to maintain the parity of sterling against gold..they needed substantial foreign credits.
b. Equality, as legal tender or money, between coins of one metal and coins of another, in certain definite proportions of weight and fineness, fixed by law. Now rare.
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society > trade and finance > money > value of money > [noun] > relative value of coins or metals
ratea1513
ration1653
ratio1771
rating1841
parity1895
basket of currencies1973
1895 Spectator 2 Feb. 157 Convinced..that silver can be raised by legislation to a ‘parity’ with gold.
1900 Ld. Aldenham Colloquy on Currency 280 The object..was to maintain the parity between Gold and Silver money... The parity which they have in the United States is a National parity between the coins, not between the metals... What I desire is International parity.
c. Equivalence between the nominal and the market value of stocks, etc.; = par n.1 1b. rare.
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society > trade and finance > stocks and shares > [noun] > prices of stocks and shares > value at par
par1802
par value1807
parity1900
1900 Stock Market Rep. Buying on days when the market is weak and below parity, and selling when prices are put above parity by the operations of local speculators.
d. An agreed price for agricultural produce, relative to other commodities. Cf. purchasing power parity n. at purchasing n. Compounds 2.
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society > trade and finance > monetary value > price > [noun] > artificially arranged prices
staple ratea1628
sheriff fiars1689
fiars1723
pool price1872
parity1941
support price1943
shadow-price1965
trigger price1978
1941 Time (Air Express ed.) 2 June 2/3 ‘Parity’ is a political concept which holds that the farmer should receive prices for his products which will give him a purchasing power (in terms of other commodities) equal to that which he had in the period 1909–14.
1977 Askov (Minnesota) American 31 Mar. 1/2 The milk price support increase to 83 percent of parity will have a positive impact on Minnesota dairy farmers.
1990 Punch 27 July 34/1 Parity was conceived in the Twenties, a time when increased mechanisation and better seeds and fertilisers were causing agricultural prices to fall.
e. The value of one currency in terms of another or others at an established exchange rate, as agreed by the procedures of the International Monetary Fund (effective from 1 March 1947).
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society > trade and finance > money > value of money > [noun] > relative value of different currencies > as agreed by I.M.F.
parity1945
1945 Ann. Reg. 1944 i. ii. 41 All transactions between the Fund and members were to be at par, and all transactions in member currencies at rates within an agreed percentage of parity.
1971 Daily Tel. 10 May 14 The major countries agree..that if..the price of their own currency in relation to any other foreign exchange moves to more than 1 p.c. away from the fixed price (called parity), they will intervene.
1992 Economist 3 Oct. 50/2 The krona is now stable and, unlike sterling or the lira, has maintained its parity with the ecu.
6. In industrial relations: equivalence of pay for jobs or categories of work perceived as being comparable or analogous; the practice or system of setting pay levels according to such perceived comparability. Also: an instance of this.
ΚΠ
1959 Rep. Structure Public Libr. Service Eng. & Wales v. 21 in Parl. Papers 1958–9 XVI. 923 [There] was a short period between 1946 and 1955 when this parity was in sight.
1976 New Yorker 15 Nov. 167/1 The traditional local practice of paying policemen and firemen at the same level, known as parity, has long been a sore point with the police.
1989 Daily Tel. 17 Jan. 19/7 Mrs Cazalet-Keir..persevered with the principle of parity between the sexes in her role as chairman of the Equal Pay Campaign.
Compounds
C1. General attributive and objective.† parity-preaching n. Obsolete
parity level n.
ΚΠ
1893 Times 14 Oct. 4/1 Quotations here fell to parity level.
2003 Weekly Times (Australia) (Nexis) 23 July 71 Our domestic new crop feed barley cash price is now on world parity levels with the rise in European prices.
ΚΠ
1652 W. Brough Preservative against Schisme in Sacred Princ. 44 Have all Doors shut upon you for your Parity-preaching.
parity price n.
ΚΠ
1889 Times 29 Aug. 10/1 The parity price in Wall-street is ¾ higher.
2001 High Plains Jrnl. 16 Apr. b4/2 Just like those who still insist on parity prices for grain in this country.
C2.
parity bit n. Computing a bit which is added to a set of binary values in order to act as a check, and is made to be 1 or 0 so as to make the total number of 1s in the set even or (less commonly) odd.
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society > computing and information technology > programming language > program or code > [noun] > bit level codes > parity bit
parity digit1954
parity bit1955
parity1966
1955 Math. Tables & Other Aids Computation 9 134 The words are often divided into: one parity bit, 24 significant digits, sign of exponent, five-bit exponent, and sign of number.
1975 J. Finkel Computer-aided Experimentation xvii. 373 The parity bit is computed by the memory write hardware before storing a word. When a word is fetched from storage the parity bit is recomputed, and if it does not agree with the parity bit appended to the word an interrupt is issued.
1999 J. Naughton Brief Hist. Future (2001) vi. 102 The transmitter can add a special bit (called a parity bit) at the end of each group of digits, depending on whether the group has an even or an odd number of ones in it.
parity-canton n. a canton of a country in which ethnic groups or religious denominations have equal power or status with regard to local government.
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society > authority > rule or government > a or the state > [noun] > a union or confederacy of states > state forming part of a confederation > Swiss
canton1611
parity-canton1899
1899 Westm. Gaz. 27 July 3/3 In the ‘Parity-Cantons’ of the Swiss Confederation, where two Landeskirchen are established—a Catholic and an Evangelical Church.
2001 ONASA News Agency Newswire (Nexis) 2 Aug. The parity-arrangement of the municipality in the parity-canton [sc. Herzegovina-Neretva Canton in Bosnia-Herzegovina] could be a good example for other municipalities.
parity check n. Computing a check on the correctness of a set of binary digits that involves ascertaining the parity of a number derived from the set in a predetermined way (cf. parity bit n.).
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society > computing and information technology > data > database > data entry > [noun] > error check
summation check1926
checksum1940
parity check1950
Hamming distance1954
redundancy check1955
sum check1956
validity check1957
1950 R. W. Hamming in Bell Syst. Techn. Jrnl. 29 150 The type of check used..will be called a parity check. The above was an even parity check; had we used an odd number of 1's to determine the setting of the check position it would have been an odd parity check.
1969 Information & Control 15 397 A burst of length b can corrupt at most one of the parity checks.
1999 R. Bloch in I. B. Cohen & G. W. Welch Makin' Numbers iii. 200 The parity check as we know it today was actually described for the first time in my weighted count patent as a degenerate form of weight count involving as little as a single binary digit.
parity checking n. Computing the action of performing a parity check.
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society > computing and information technology > data > database > data entry > [noun] > error check > action of performing
parity checking1958
validity checking1960
1958 IRE Trans. Electronic Computers 7 207/1 Parity checking usually is defined for the binary system in terms of the odd or evenness of the number of ONE digits in a specified block of binary digits.
1990 New Scientist 20 Jan. 42/1 ‘Parity checking’ enables the system to detect when there are errors in the signal received.
parity digit n. Computing = parity bit n.
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society > computing and information technology > programming language > program or code > [noun] > bit level codes > parity bit
parity digit1954
parity bit1955
parity1966
1954 Computers & Automation Dec. 18/1 Parity check, use of a digit (called the ‘parity digit’) carried along as a check.
1970 N. R. Scott Electronic Computer Technol. v. 217 The correct parity digit is attached to the digit group at the source, and then the augmented group is tested upon reception to determine whether the parity digit and the message digits are still in agreement.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
parityn.2
/ˈparᵻti/, U.S. /ˈpɛrədi/ Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, and Agriculture.
The fact or condition of having given birth, or of having given birth a (specified) number of times; the number of times a woman or other female mammal has given birth.
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the world > life > biology > biological processes > procreation or reproduction > [noun] > procreator, parent, or origin > fertile woman > condition of having given birth
pluriparity1866
parity1877
1877 Trans. Obstetr. Soc. 18 76 The normal uterine variations in this respect were infinite, and bore no constant relation with ‘parity,’ or the contrary.
1879 Sir J. Williams in Trans. Obstetr. Soc. 20 173 Circumstances..in which proof of parity or nulliparity may turn out to be proof of innocence or guilt.
1921 Jrnl. Obstetr. & Gynæcol. 28 69 The average parity of the multiparæ was 5.7 pregnancies.
1933 J. M. M. Kerr Maternal Mortality & Morbidity i. 20 The mortalities in mothers of varying parity are presented below, the death-rates being expressed as a percentage of the average rate in all births irrespective of parity.
1964 Obstetr. & Gynecol. 23 165/1 The anticipated increase in higher parities was seen in the multiparas, significant numbers of patients with 3 or more prior viable pregnancies being seen.
1967 Stud. Family Planning 1 18/2 The possibility always exists that another variable is yielding differentials entirely or partially on the basis of its associations with age or parity.
1975 Jrnl. Dairy Sci. 58 724 Records of body weight for 1026 Holstein females from two herds included birth weight and all available subsequent calving weights for the first six parities.
1983 Jrnl. Amer. Med. Assoc. 4 Feb. 647/1 Differential treatment of breech presentations according to parity can be supported neither by logic nor empirical data.
2000 Internat. Family Planning Perspectives 26 76/1 Egyptian women at parity four or higher are more likely than similar Moroccan women to stop childbearing.
2004 Preventive Vet. Med. 62 119 Cows of first, second and higher parities were analyzed separately.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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