pare

verb

ˈper 

pared; paring

transitive verb

1

: to trim off an outside, excess, or irregular part of

pare apples

paring his nails

2

: to diminish or reduce by or as if by paring

pare expenses

the novel was pared down to 200 pages

parer noun

Synonyms

• bob
• clip
• crop
• cut
• cut back
• dock
• lop (off)
• nip
• poll
• prune
• shave
• shear
• snip
• trim

Examples of pare in a Sentence

The company has to find a way to pare expenses.

pared the stray branches on the tree

Recent Examples on the Web

The combination of persistent inflation and strong job growth has led Wall Street to pare its expectations for rate cuts this year. —Krystal Hur, CNN, 11 June 2024

Speaking to The Drive, Jeep’s senior vice president Bill Peffer explained how the brand should probably start paring down the number of trims on some of its models, mainly the Wrangler and Gladiator. —Lawrence Hodge / Jalopnik, Quartz, 7 June 2024

GameStop shares rose as much as 103% in premarket trading on Monday, before paring the advance. —Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 3 June 2024

In prior years, Target had typically sold the full Pride assortment across its 2,000 stores, but the decision to pare back comes after the retailer faced criticism last year over some of the collection's swimsuits. —Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 10 May 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English paren, borrowed from Anglo-French parer "to make, prepare, adorn, trim, cut off," going back to Latin parāre "to supply, provide, make ready," probably verbal derivative of a nominal base *paro-, formed from parere "to give birth to, bring into being, produce" — more at parturient

Note: The Latin verb is alternatively taken as a direct outcome of an Indo-European present formation *pr̥h₃-i̯e-, but the phonetic development has been questioned. Most of the numerous compound verbs formed from parāre, as apparāre "to prepare" (see apparatus), comparāre "to prepare, collect, muster," disparāre "to divide" (see disparate), praeparāre "to furnish beforehand, prepare," reparāre "to recover, restore" (see repair entry 1), sēparāre "to divide" (see separate entry 1), fail to show vowel weakening. The verbs imperāre "to levy, order, command" (see emperor) and properāre "to hasten" (perhaps of independent origin) are for uncertain reasons exceptions. The Romance development in sense from "prepare" to a more concrete "cut (the peeling from), trim"—well attested in Old French—has become virtually the only sense in English, with the broader French meaning "prepare, adorn, decorate" being only marginally attested.

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing pare

• pare to the bone

Kids Definition

pare

verb

ˈpa(ə)r 

ˈpe(ə)r

pared; paring

1

: to trim off the outside or the ends of

2

: to reduce as if by paring