parity

plural parities

1. uncountableEquality; comparability of strength or intensity.

   Altogether, Microsoft claims a 99% feature parity between 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

   2000 April 26, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Delta Guide, Pearson Education, unpaged

   2 more examples

   For all their frailty at the back, Arsenal possessed genuine menace in attack and they carved through Chelsea with ease to restore parity nine minutes before half-time. Aaron Ramsey's pass was perfection and Gervinho took the unselfish option to set up Van Persie for a tap-in.

   2011 October 29, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 3 - 5 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport

   Day after day, for 10 days, Stones and his client rose before dawn, dressed themselves in clothes of a drab dry-leaf green and set out on the trail. By the time the sun was high in the sky and the gunmen were soaked in sweat, there arose – in their minds, at least – a sense of parity, of worthy opposition, equal opportunity in this game of life and death, even if only one party has chosen to play.

   2026 April 21, Cal Flyn, “On the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa’s wildlife”, in The Guardian

2. Senses related to classification into two sets.
   1. countablemathematicsA set with the property of having all of its elements belonging to one of two disjoint subsets, especially a set of integers split in subsets of even and odd elements.

      Parity is always preserved in such operations.

   2. countablemathematicsThe classification of an element of a set with parity into one of the two sets.

      The particles' parities can switch at random.

   3. countableuncountablecomputingThe count of one-valued bits in a value, reduced to even or odd or zero or one.
   4. countablenatural sciencesSymmetry of interactions under spatial inversion.
3. countablegamesIn reversi, the last move within a given sector of the board.
4. countableuncountableResemblance; analogy.

plural parities

1. medicineThe number of delivered pregnancies reaching viable gestational age, usually between 20-28 weeks.
2. agricultureThe number of times a sow has farrowed.