sample

plural samples

1. A part or snippet of something taken or presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen.

   a blood sample

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   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.

   1869, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, “Quo Warranto?”, in Lorna Doone, page 99

   Altogether we spent eight days on the Aparaman Range, exploring and gathering samples of plant and animal life.

   1989 May, Uwe George, “Venezuela's Islands in Time”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 559

   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.

   2014 May 7, Anh Do, “War orphan named 'Precious Pearl' reunites with South Vietnamese soldier who rescued her in '72”, in The Sydney Morning Herald

2. mathematicsA 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.

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   It is interesting to find that, with the exception of a few imperfectly-observed South Sea Islanders, and whose actual numbers, if the measurements are correct, are very few, the English professional classes head the long list [in average height], and that the Anglo-Saxon race takes the chief place in it among the civilised communities, although it is possible it might stand second to the Scandinavian countries if a fair sample of their population were obtained.

   1883, Sir Francis Galton et al., “Final Report of the Anthropometric Committee”, in Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, page 269

   It's a pretty grey outlook for England if these are a sample of the mothers of the coming generation.

   1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

3. cookingA small quantity of food for tasting, typically given away for free.
4. businessA small piece of some goods, for determining quality, colour, etc., typically given away for free.
5. entertainmentA borrowing of easily recognised phases (or moments) from other music (or movies) in a recording.
6. obsoleteExample; pattern.

   [The King] Liu’d in Court / (Which rare it is to do) moſt prais’d, moſt lou’d, / A ſample to the yongeſt.

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 369, column 2

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   Thus he concludes, and euery hardie knight / His ſample follow’d, and his brethren twaine, / The other Princes put on harneſſe light, / As footmen vſe.

   1600, Torquato Tasso, translated by Edward Fairfax, Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem, London: Ar. Hatfield, translation of La Gerusalemme liberata (in Italian), book XI, page 200

present singular third person samples · participle present sampling · participle past sampled · past sampled

1. transitiveTo 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.

   1960 March, G. Freeman Allen, “Europe's most luxurious express - the "Settebello"”, in Trains Illustrated, page 140

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   They had just finished their breakfast, and the sight of the remains of it almost overpowered me. I could hardly keep my wits together in the presence of that food, but as I was not asked to sample it, I had to bear my trouble as best I could.

   1893, Mark Twain, “The £1,000,000 Bank-Note”, in The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other Stories, pages 2–3

   Mok was enjoying himself very much. It was not often that he had such an opportunity to sample the delights of Paris. His young master, Ralph, had given him strict orders never to go out at night, or in his leisure hours, unless accompanied by Cheditafa.

   1895, Frank Richard Stockton, “Mok as a Vocalist”, in The Adventures of Captain Horn, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1907, page 367

   It is certainly my personal favourite, for it was by way of Hardwick's great Doric arch that I first sampled the roar and clatter of London streets, the trip being a boyhood reward for achieving (unexpected) success in a school examination!

   1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 703

   The Eyedropper tool allows you to sample colors from anywhere in your open InDesign documents (yes, even from placed images!) You can add a sampled color to the Swatches palette and then apply it to the fill or stroke of any frame, shape, path, line, or table.

   2005, Ted LoCascio, InDesign CS2 at Your Fingertips, →ISBN, page 46

   The Healing brush is similar to the Clone Stamp in that information is sampled by Alt-clicking and then painted into other parts of the image. The big difference is that the Healing brush attempts to make the sampled data match the lighting and shading of the area to which it's being applied.

   2008, Mark Fitzgerald, Photoshop CS3 Restoration and Retouching Bible, →ISBN, page 148

2. transitivecomputingTo reduce a continuous signal (such as a sound wave) to a discrete signal.
3. transitiveentertainmentTo reuse a portion of (an existing sound recording) in a new piece of music.

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   To address this novel legal quandary, one legal treatise on copyright has developed the concept of fragmented literal similarity, a method of determining whether a sample-based work is substantially similar to the source it sampled. The name reflects the exactness of the similarity between the snippet of a track that is sampled and the sampled copy of that snippet.

   2011, Kembrew McLeod, Peter DiCola, Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling, →ISBN, page 130

4. transitivecomputer graphicsTo 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.

   2006, Translation of Digital Process to Architectural Program, →ISBN, page 6

1. abbreviationinitialismuncountableemergency medicineInitialism of signs and symptoms, allergies, medications, past pertinent history, last oral intake, events leading to present illness.

plural Samples

1. A surname.