English
match
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /mæt͡ʃ/
Noun

match (plural matches)

  1. (sports) A competitive sporting event such as a boxing meet, a baseball game, or a cricket match.
    My local team are playing in a match against their arch-rivals today.
  2. Any contest or trial of strength or skill, or to determine superiority.
    • many a warlike match
    • A solemn match was made; he lost the prize.
    • Lim, Hiong Seng (1886) Handbook of the Swatow Vernacular, Singapore: Koh Yew Hean Press
      quote en
  3. Someone with a measure of an attribute equaling or exceeding the object of comparison.
    He knew he had met his match.
    • 30 January, 1716, Joseph Addison, The Freeloader No. 12
      Government […] makes an innocent man, though of the lowest rank, a match for the mightiest of his fellow subjects.
  4. A marriage.
  5. A candidate for matrimony; one to be gained in marriage.
    • She […] was looked upon as the richest match of the West.
  6. Suitability.
  7. Equivalence; a state of correspondence.
  8. Equality of conditions in contest or competition.
    • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene v]:
      It were no match, your nail against his horn.
  9. A pair of items or entities with mutually suitable characteristics.
    The carpet and curtains are a match.
  10. An agreement or compact.
    • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene v]:
      Thy hand upon that match.
    • Love doth seldom suffer itself to be confined by other matches than those of its own making.
  11. (metalworking) A perforated board, block of plaster, hardened sand, etc., in which a pattern is partly embedded when a mould is made, for giving shape to the surfaces of separation between the parts of the mould.
Translations Translations Verb

match (matches, present participle matching; past and past participle matched)

  1. (intransitive) To agree; to be equal; to correspond.
    Their interests didn't match, so it took a long time to agree what to do together.
    These two copies are supposed to be identical, but they don't match.
  2. (transitive) To agree with; to be equal to; to correspond to.
    His interests didn't match her interests.
    • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546 ↗; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860 ↗, page 0091 ↗:
      There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.
  3. (transitive) To make a successful match or pairing.
    They found out about his color-blindness when he couldn't match socks properly.
  4. (transitive) To equal or exceed in achievement.
    She matched him at every turn: anything he could do, she could do as well or better.
  5. (obsolete) To unite in marriage, to mate.
    • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2 Scene 1:
      […] Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
    • 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, published 1712, [Act 5, scene 1]:
      A senator of Rome survived, / Would not have matched his daughter with a king.
  6. To fit together, or make suitable for fitting together; specifically, to furnish with a tongue and groove at the edges.
    to match boards
Translations Translations Noun

match (plural matches)

  1. A device made of wood or paper, at the tip coated with chemicals that ignite with the friction of being dragged (struck) against a rough dry surface.
    Synonyms: spunk (obsolete)
    He struck a match and lit his cigarette.
Translations

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