Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of having given birth.
  • noun The number of children borne by one woman.
  • noun Equality, as in amount, status, or value.
  • noun Functional equivalence, as in the weaponry or military strength of adversaries.
  • noun The equivalent in value of a sum of money expressed in terms of a different currency at a fixed official rate of exchange.
  • noun Equality of prices of goods or securities in two different markets.
  • noun A level for farm-product prices maintained by governmental support and intended to give farmers the same purchasing power they had during a chosen base period.
  • noun Mathematics The even or odd quality of an integer. If two integers are both odd or both even, they are said to have the same parity; if one is odd and one even, they have different parity.
  • noun An intrinsic symmetry property of a physical system, such as a subatomic particle, that specifies how the system would behave if the three spatial coordinates were reversed from x, y, z to −x, −y, −z.
  • noun A quantum number, either +1 (even) or −1 (odd), that mathematically represents this property.
  • noun The even or odd quality of the number of 1's or 0's in a binary code, often used to determine the integrity of data especially after transmission.
  • noun A parity bit.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin parere, to give birth, bring forth; see perə- in Indo-European roots + –ity.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French parité, from Old French parite, from Late Latin paritās, from pār, par-, equal; see pair.]

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