a small part of anything or one of a number, intended to show the quality, style, or nature of the whole; specimen.
Statistics. a subset of a population: to study a sample of the total population.
a sound of short duration, as a musical tone or a drumbeat, digitally stored in a synthesizer for playback.
adjective
serving as a specimen: a sample piece of cloth.
verb (used with object),sam·pled,sam·pling.
to take a sample or samples of; test or judge by a sample.
Origin of sample
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English word from Old French word essample.See example
synonym study for sample
1. See example.
OTHER WORDS FROM sample
in·ter·sam·ple,noun,adjective,verb (used with object),in·ter·sam·pled,in·ter·sam·pling.mis·sam·ple,verb,mis·sam·pled,mis·sam·pling.re·sam·ple,verb (used with object),re·sam·pled,re·sam·pling.
VERITAS might find the site of strange geochemistry, but without actually sampling the phosphine directly in the clouds, there wouldn’t be enough evidence to connect the two mysteries.
We need to go to Venus as soon as possible|Neel Patel|September 16, 2020|MIT Technology Review
Ty Cobb, the HRC Foundation’s senior director of Strategic Initiative and Research, who worked on the report, said the report’s data was obtained from a sample of 12,000 people who participated in a nationwide survey.
HRC examines hospital policies, impact of COVID on LGBTQ people|Lou Chibbaro Jr.|September 16, 2020|Washington Blade
Those two groups made up just 18 percent of the Dunedin sample.
‘The Origins of You’ explores how kids develop into their adult selves|Bruce Bower|September 16, 2020|Science News
The margin of error among the sample of registered voters is plus or minus four percentage points.
Post-ABC Wisconsin poll shows Biden holding narrow edge over Trump|Dan Balz, Emily Guskin|September 16, 2020|Washington Post
We’ll double our sample size next week and have even more to discuss.
We Knew A Football Team Would Win In Week 1. But Maybe Not ‘Football Team.’|Sara Ziegler (sara.ziegler@fivethirtyeight.com)|September 14, 2020|FiveThirtyEight
The astronomers found that of the 93 quasars in the sample, 19 exhibited a measurable amount of polarization.
The Black Hole Tango|Matthew R. Francis|November 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In West Africa at the present, an Ebola test can take four days or more and that is if the sample is not lost.
From Ebola Country to NYC’s Subways|Michael Daly|October 25, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Sample reportedly told her “to drop the matter” and not discuss it with anybody else.
Speed Read: James Risen Indicts The War On Terror’s Costly Follies|William O’Connor|October 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Virginia is one of the 29 states that requires arrestees to submit a DNA sample to be entered into CODIS.
Stopping the Next Campus Kidnapper|Caitlin Dickson|October 8, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Ever since Eve urged Adam to sample the forbidden fruit, men have been doing crazy things in the name of love.
Boy Shaves Stash, Gets the Girl: Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Forever|Amy Zimmerman|August 21, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Then she helped the customer match her sample until she had what she wanted.
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store|Laura Lee Hope
The musicians give a sample of their skill and seat themselves at the festive board.
Norway|Beatrix Jungman
A description of the operation of accessioning in the New York public library (Reference department) is enclosed as a sample.
Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association Held at Ottawa, Canada June 26-July 2, 1912|Various
I give a sample of one of the conversations as reported from their lips at the time.
Concord Days|A. Bronson Alcott
Well, why didn't the Shipping Commission build a sample ship from yellow pine?
Worrying Won't Win|Montague Glass
British Dictionary definitions for sample
sample
/ (ˈsɑːmpəl) /
noun
a small part of anything, intended as representative of the whole; specimen
(as modifier)a sample bottle
Also called: samplingstatistics
a set of individuals or items selected from a population for analysis to yield estimates of, or to test hypotheses about, parameters of the whole population. A biased sample is one in which the items selected share some property which influences their distribution, while a random sample is devised to avoid any such interference so that its distribution is affected only by, and so can be held to represent, that of the whole populationSee also matched sample
(as modifier)sample distribution
verb
(tr)to take a sample or samples of
music
to take a short extract from (one record) and mix it into a different backing track
to record (a sound) and feed it into a computerized synthesizer so that it can be reproduced at any pitch
Word Origin for sample
C13: from Old French essample, from Latin exemplumexample