sample

Forms

1.A part or snippet of something taken or presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen.
- He looked down into Glen Doone first, and sniffed as if he were smelling it, like a sample of goods from a wholesale house; and then he looked at the hills over yonder, and then he stared at me.
- Then one day in May 2012, he picked up a free sample of a Vietnamese-language magazine based in New Jersey. In it, he saw an article about a career Navy officer named Kimberly Mitchell and her search into her past.
2.A subset or portion of a population that is systematically selected for measurement, observation, or questioning, with the objective of generating statistical information that accurately reflects the characteristics of the entire population.
- Large samples are generally more reliable than small samples due to having less variability.
- It's a pretty grey outlook for England if these are a sample of the mothers of the coming generation.
3.A small quantity of food for tasting, typically given away for free.
4.A small piece of some goods, for determining quality, colour, etc., typically given away for free.

1.To reduce a continuous signal (such as a sound wave) to a discrete signal.
2.To reuse a portion of (an existing sound recording) in a new piece of music.
3.To take or to test a sample or samples of.
- I did not really wonder, after sampling the "Settebello's" standards of comfort and service, that even on a midweek day in autumn there was not a seat to spare, despite the cost.
4.To make or show something similar to a sample.
- It means that a larger image field can be sampled from a lower resolution copy without much loss in comparative data, only the number of data points to be manipulated.

Common· #1321

Inherited from Middle English saumple, sample, from Old French essample (“example”), from Latin exemplum.

Doublet of example and exemplum.