▪ I. † pare, n.1 Obs. rare.
[f. pare v.1]
1. That which is pared off; the paring or parings collectively.
| c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 30 Take a part of Applys, & do a-way þe corys, & þe pare. |
2. A piece of turf, a sod.
| 1651 tr. Beza's Fun. Verses on Calvin in Fuller Abel Rediv. 284 How happens it that this is Calvins share, To lye under this little, unknowne pare? Is not this he who living did appeare, Decaying Romes continued dread and feare? |
▪ II. ‖ pare, n.2 N.Z.
(ˈpɑre)
[Maori.]
A lintel in a Maori building.
| 1897 A. Hamilton Maori Art (1901) ii. 156 The small doorway has the usual pare or korupe over it with a single figure in the centre, and the bird-headed monsters at the ends. 1911 Dominion Museum Bull. (N.Z.) No. 3. 106 From the Salem Museum comes also the photograph of a pare or door-lintel... This pare can be definitely located, from the style of carving, as having been made in the Bay of Plenty District. 1927, 1949 [see korupe]. 1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. May 501 The dark-brown pare or korupe framing the window..is a modern totara carving. 1962 N. Davis in Davis & Wrenn Eng. & Medieval Stud. 324 The central group on a lintel (pare) from Porangahau, Hawke's Bay. |
▪ III. pare, v.1
(pɛə(r))
Also 4–6 payre, 6 paire, 7–8 pair.
[a. F. pare-r to prepare, trim, dress, etc., ‘also, to pare the hoofe of a horse’ (Cotgr.):—L. parāre to make fit or ready: see prepare.]
I. † 1. trans. To get ready, to prepare; to adorn, deck out. Obs.
| 1392, 1444 [see paring vbl. n. 1]. a 1400–50 Alexander 4208 Quen it [a boat] was done at his diuyse & draȝen ouer with hidis, Pared & Parreld at his pay, pickid & taloghid. a 1450 Knt. de la Tour (1868) 67 It is synne to haue so mani diuerse clothes, and to do so moche coste to pare the foule body. 1617 Minsheu Ductor, To Pare, to make readie. |
† 2. To form, shape (or ? to cut). Obs.
| 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 1408 Lyfte logges þer-ouer & on lofte coruen, Pared out of paper & poynted of glolde [? golde]. Ibid. 1536 A fust faylaynde þe wryst, Pared on þe parget, purtrayed lettres. 13.. Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 802 Pared out of papure purely hit semed. |
II. 3. To trim by cutting off projecting, irregular, or superficial parts; to cut close to the edge so as to make even or neat; to cut away the outer edge or outside of (something), e.g. the skin or rind of (a fruit), in thin layers, slices, or flakes.
| c 1320 Sir Tristr. 542 Bred þai pard and schare, Ynouȝ þai hadde at ete. c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xxxvi. (Baptista) 1099 To payre ane apil & til eete. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. v. 243 To wey pens with a peys, and pare þe heuyest. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. vii. 2 At Iuyn a floor for thresshing thus thei make: They pare hit first, and lightly after gete Hit doluen smal. c 1530 H. Rhodes Bk. Nurture 171 in Babees Bk. 76 Your hands cleane, your nayles parde. 1530 Palsgr. 252/1 Paryng yrone to pare a horsehofe with. 1563 Golding Cæsar vii. (1565) 199 b, A littel hill..notably fortified, and on all sides, pared stepe. 1626 Middleton Anything for Quiet Life iv. ii, What a cursed wretch was I to pare my nails to-day! a Friday. 1686 Lond. Gaz. No. 2124/4 Stolen.., about 350 of the best Kids, some ready pared. 1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 215 Take some pippins, pare, core, and boil them. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xxi. IV. 620 The practice of paring down money..was far too lucrative to be so checked. |
b. Phrase to pare to the quick, to cut away the epidermis, or other superficial part, so deep as to reach the ‘live’ or sensitive parts; to pare so as to hurt. Also fig. So to pare too close or near.
| 1538 Elyot, Resecare ad viuum, to pare to the quicke, to touche the quicke in a mater. 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 8 Great fines so neere did pare me. 1598 Chapman Iliad To Rdr. (1865) 91, I entreat my..Reader, that all things to the quick he will not pare. 1683 Burnet tr. More's Utopia (1685) 14 Whom, to raise their Revenues, they pare to the Quick. 1708 Swift Sacram. Test Wks. 1755 II. i. 134 His claws pared to the quick. 1790 H. More Relig. Fash. World (1791) 49 The prevailing mode of living has pared real hospitality to the very quick. 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) I. 452 The smith..proceeds at once to ‘pare the corn out to the quick, till the blood starts’. |
c. To prune by cutting off superfluous shoots (obs.); to reduce the thickness of (a hedge, etc.).
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xcviii. (Bodl. MS.) lf. 214 b/1 The apple tree waxiþ bareyne but he be pared and ischred. 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. i. Eden 86 He plants, he proins, he pares, he trimmeth round Th' ever green beauties of a fruitful ground. 1633 G. Herbert Temple, Paradise iv, When thou dost..with thy knife but prune and pare, Ev'n fruitfull trees more fruitfull are. 1884–5 Act 48 & 49 Vict. c. 13 §2 It shall be lawful..to cut, prune, or pare the said hedge. |
4. To slice off the turf or other vegetation covering the surface of the ground. a. with the ground or land as object; esp. in phr. pare and burn, to cut the turf to the depth of two or three inches, and burn it, in order to use the ashes as manure, as is done in denshiring or burn-beating.
| 1530 Palsgr. 652/2 He hath pared his grounde, he loketh to have saffrone shortly. 1761 Sterne Tr. Shandy IV. xxxi, The..expense of paring and burning and fencing in the Ox-moor. 1789 Trans. Soc. Arts VII. 40 Seventeen acres were pared and burned in 1779. c 1830 Glouc. Farm Rep. 14 in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Hubs. III, When the saintfoin plants begin to fail, which is about the sixth year, the land is pared, and burned, and sown to turnips. |
b. with the turf as obj. (cf. 6).
| 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 20 They cast into their Foldes suche Turues pared from the grounde. 1704 Dict. Rust. et Urb. s.v. Burning, With a Breastplayt to pare off the Turff. 1846 in J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) II. 181 This system of culture consists in paring off the grassy sward or surface of the land, with an instrument called a breastplough,..the turf..pared off being burnt. |
5. To reduce (a thing) by cutting or shaving away; hence, to reduce or diminish little by little; to bring down in size or amount. Also absol.
| 1530 Palsgr. 701/2, I shave, I pare away any thing by thynne portions. 1643 Milton Divorce ii. xx. Wks. (1851) 119 We never leave subtilizing and casuisting till we have straitn'd and par'd that liberall path into a rasors edge to walk on, between a precipice of unnecessary mischief on either side. 1721 Ramsay Poet's Wish i, Tay and Tweed's smooth streams, Which gentily, and daintily, Pare down the flow'ry braes. 1825 in Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) II. 16 They pare down the wretched souls to what is below gaol allowance. 1864 Bowen Logic iii. 57 To pare down the complexity and redundance of rhetorical expression. |
6. To cut, shave, or shear off or away (an outer border, surface, rind, or skin, a projection; formerly also, any part on the outside of something).
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) IV. 47 Þere the Affres closed hym [Regulus] in a streiȝt tree..and parede of his yȝe liddes. c 1400 Laud Troy Bk. 13407 He pared her chekes al aboute, That al here tethe fellen oute. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. iii. 532 Now is to repare Rosayres olde & drynesse of to pare. 14.. Sir Beues 197/3939 (MS. M) Halfe the helme he can pare: Than myght men se his hede bare. 1530 Palsgr. 652/2 Pare your crust away, parés la crouste de vostre payn. 1613 Heywood Silver Age i. i. Wks. 1874 III. 90 Whose head wee by Mineruaes aide par'd off. 1686 A. Horneck Crucif. Jesus xviii. 536 Let them pare away that poysonous rind. 1787 Winter Syst. Husb. 105 Where ants inhabit, their hills should be pared off. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xxi. IV. 623 To pass a halfcrown, after paring a pennyworth of silver from it. 1885 Manch. Weekly Times Suppl. 20 June 4/3 The edges are pared off by the old-fashioned bookbinders' plough. |
b. fig. To cut off or remove.
| 1549 Coverdale, etc. Erasm. Par. Col. ii. 5 b, Nor haue ye a litle piece onlye of the carnall man pared awaye. c 1610 Sir J. Melvil Mem. (1735) 401 Conditions and Articles might be added and pared at the Pleasure of their Friends. 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. Pref. §47, I was diligent to remarke such doctrines, and to pare off the mistakes. a 1677 Barrow Serm. Wks. 1716 I. 10 Paring away the largest uses of wealth. 1883 A. Thomas Mod. Housewife 32, I did not see how it was possible for me to pare and prune off any more of our expenses. |
c. To make or form by paring or cutting away.
| 1708 J. Philips Cider i. 27 Slow house-bearing snails, that creep O'er the ripe fruitage, paring slimy tracts In the sleek rinds. 1713 J. Warder True Amazons (ed. 2) 121 To pare away with a sharp Chizel a place for the Slider. |
Hence pared (pɛəd, poet. ˈpɛərɪd) ppl. a. (also with down).
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 384/1 Paryd, as breede, decrustatus. c 1500 For to serve Ld. in Babees Bk. 367, iiij or v loves of paryd brede. 1597–8 Bp. Hall Sat. iv. iii. 89 Not his pared nayle will he forego. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xxi. IV. 643 Huge heaps of pared and defaced crowns and shillings. 1974 Country Life 21 Feb. 398/2 The pared-down practicality of mini skirts and boots. 1977 Rolling Stone 30 June 98/2 The arrangements are just pared-down versions of the originals. |
▪ IV. † pare, v.2 Obs.
[Shortened from compare.]
intr. To ‘compare’, admit of comparison.
| c 1430 Pilgr. Lyf Manhode ii. civ. (1869) 114 Þat j haue prys of alle, and þat noon be paringe to me. |
▪ V. pare
obs. form of pair n.1 and v.2, pear.