"have a pair" meaning in English

See have a pair in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-have a pair.ogg [Australia] Forms: has a pair [present, singular, third-person], having a pair [participle, present], had a pair [participle, past], had a pair [past]
Etymology: Abbreviation of "have a pair of testicles," the masculine glands supporting generation and sexual potency. Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> a pair}} have a pair (third-person singular simple present has a pair, present participle having a pair, simple past and past participle had a pair)
  1. (chiefly US, colloquial, idiomatic, somewhat vulgar) To be manly, brave. Tags: US, colloquial, idiomatic, vulgar Related terms: grow a pair, strap on a pair
    Sense id: en-have_a_pair-en-verb-Lmeqhqim Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for have a pair meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Abbreviation of \"have a pair of testicles,\" the masculine glands supporting generation and sexual potency.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has a pair",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a pair",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> a pair"
      },
      "expansion": "have a pair (third-person singular simple present has a pair, present participle having a pair, simple past and past participle had a pair)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Sound off like you got a pair! (drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket)"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be manly, brave."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_a_pair-en-verb-Lmeqhqim",
      "links": [
        [
          "manly",
          "manly"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US, colloquial, idiomatic, somewhat vulgar) To be manly, brave."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "grow a pair"
        },
        {
          "word": "strap on a pair"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have a pair.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/98/En-au-have_a_pair.ogg/En-au-have_a_pair.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/En-au-have_a_pair.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have a pair"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Abbreviation of \"have a pair of testicles,\" the masculine glands supporting generation and sexual potency.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has a pair",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "having a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a pair",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "had a pair",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "have<has,,had> a pair"
      },
      "expansion": "have a pair (third-person singular simple present has a pair, present participle having a pair, simple past and past participle had a pair)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "grow a pair"
    },
    {
      "word": "strap on a pair"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs",
        "English vulgarities"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Sound off like you got a pair! (drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket)"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be manly, brave."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "manly",
          "manly"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US, colloquial, idiomatic, somewhat vulgar) To be manly, brave."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-have a pair.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/98/En-au-have_a_pair.ogg/En-au-have_a_pair.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/En-au-have_a_pair.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have a pair"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.