PARITY

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does parity mean? 

• PARITY (noun)
  The noun PARITY has 5 senses:

1. (obstetrics) the number of liveborn children a woman has delivered

2. (mathematics) a relation between a pair of integers: if both integers are odd or both are even they have the same parity; if one is odd and the other is even they have different parity

3. (computer science) a bit that is used in an error detection procedure in which a 0 or 1 is added to each group of bits so that it will have either an odd number of 1's or an even number of 1's; e.g., if the parity is odd then any group of bits that arrives with an even number of 1's must contain an error

4. (physics) parity is conserved in a universe in which the laws of physics are the same in a right-handed system of coordinates as in a left-handed system

5. functional equality

  Familiarity information: PARITY used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PARITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(obstetrics) the number of liveborn children a woman has delivered

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

para; parity

Context example:

a bipara is a woman who has given birth to two children

Hypernyms ("parity" is a kind of...):

gestation; maternity; pregnancy (the state of being pregnant; the period from conception to birth when a woman carries a developing fetus in her uterus)

Domain category:

midwifery; OB; obstetrics; tocology (the branch of medicine dealing with childbirth and care of the mother)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(mathematics) a relation between a pair of integers: if both integers are odd or both are even they have the same parity; if one is odd and the other is even they have different parity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas

Context example:

parity is often used to check the integrity of transmitted data

Hypernyms ("parity" is a kind of...):

mathematical relation (a relation between mathematical expressions (such as equality or inequality))

Domain category:

math; mathematics; maths (a science (or group of related sciences) dealing with the logic of quantity and shape and arrangement)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "parity"):

evenness (the parity of even numbers (divisible by two))

oddness (the parity of odd numbers (not divisible by two))

Sense 3

Meaning:

(computer science) a bit that is used in an error detection procedure in which a 0 or 1 is added to each group of bits so that it will have either an odd number of 1's or an even number of 1's; e.g., if the parity is odd then any group of bits that arrives with an even number of 1's must contain an error

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

check bit; parity; parity bit

Hypernyms ("parity" is a kind of...):

bit (a unit of measurement of information (from binary + digit); the amount of information in a system having two equiprobable states)

Domain category:

computer science; computing (the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structures)

Sense 4

Meaning:

(physics) parity is conserved in a universe in which the laws of physics are the same in a right-handed system of coordinates as in a left-handed system

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

conservation of parity; mirror symmetry; parity; space-reflection symmetry

Hypernyms ("parity" is a kind of...):

conservation ((physics) the maintenance of a certain quantities unchanged during chemical reactions or physical transformations)

Domain category:

natural philosophy; physics (the science of matter and energy and their interactions)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Functional equality

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("parity" is a kind of...):

equivalence (essential equality and interchangeability)

 Context examples 

A woman with a parity of zero.

(Nulliparous, NCI Thesaurus)

As to learning, government, arts, manufactures, and the like, my master confessed, he could find little or no resemblance between the Yahoos of that country and those in ours; for he only meant to observe what parity there was in our natures.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)