English

Noun

parity ‎(countable and uncountable, plural parities)

1. (uncountable) Equality; comparability of strength or intensity.
   • 2000 April 26, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Delta Guide, Pearson Education, unpaged:

     Altogether, Microsoft claims a 99% feature parity between 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

   • 2011 October 29, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 3 - 5 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport:

     For all their frailty at the back, Arsenal possessed genuine menace in attack and they carved through Chelsea with ease to restore parity nine minutes before half-time. Aaron Ramsey's pass was perfection and Gervinho took the unselfish option to set up Van Persie for a tap-in.

2. (mathematics, countable) A set with the property of having all of its elements belonging to one of two disjoint subsets, especially a set of integers split in subsets of even and odd elements.

   Parity is always preserved in such operations.

3. (mathematics, countable) The classification of an element of a set with parity into one of the two sets.

   The particles' parities can switch at random.

4. (physics, countable) Symmetry of interactions under spatial inversion.
5. (games, countable) In reversi, the last move within a given sector of the board.

Antonyms

• chirality

Derived terms

• brand parity
• parity bit

Translations

Etymology 2

From Latin paritas, from pariō ‎(“give birth”)

Noun

parity ‎(plural parities)

1. (medicine, countable) The number of times a woman has given birth.
2. (agriculture, countable) The number of times a sow has farrowed.

Translations