A pair of homonyms

Add comment November 20th, 2009

My previous two offerings were about “pair.” Appropriately enough, it has two homonyms in English.

One is “pare,” which can mean “to cut or trim away; peel” — hence, “paring knife.”

It also can mean “to reduce or diminish gradually.” This definition includes the advisory that it’s often used with ”down,” as in, “The House has promised to pare down the cost of the program.” This seems unnecessary — “reduce” and “diminish” already say “down” to me, but that’s idiom for you.

“Pare” can be traced back to the Latin “parare,” for “to set in order, get ready” — essentially the same as “prepare.”

The other homonym is “pear,” a type of tree that always seems to have a partridge in it this time of year.

The “-ear” spelling for the “air” sound is fairly rare — “bear,” “swear” and “wear” spring to mind.

Another is “tear” (the ripping kind). But there’s also “tear” (the crying kind), which rhymes with “hear.”

Sometimes it’s enough to make you tear your hair out until you tear up.