sample

Pluralsamples

Formssamples, sampling, sampled

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A part or piece of something taken or shown to demonstrate the quality of the whole.

   The geologist labeled each rock sample before sending it to the lab.

   Inspectors collected samples from the shipment to verify its condition.

   Similarspecimen, example, portion, piece

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A small quantity of food offered for tasting, usually given away for free.

   A server walked the aisles offering each customer a sample of warm soup.

   We picked up several samples at the food fair before deciding what to order.

   Similartaste, taster, morsel, bite

   Note

   Food fairs and supermarket aisles run on this use. The sample is meant to be eaten, so a shopper can judge the taste before buying, and since it is usually free, free sample is its natural pairing. To eat one is to sample it, and the verb keeps the same idea of trying a little before committing to more.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A small piece of some goods, used to judge its quality, color, and so on, often given away for free.

   The flooring showroom let us take a tile sample home overnight.

   Customers can request samples of each finish before placing a large order.

   Similarswatch, specimen

   Note

   Trade has its own version: the swatch of cloth, the paint chip, the floor tile handed to a buyer before a larger order is placed. It is common in the textile, paint and materials trades. Where the food sample is eaten, this one is looked at and handled, and the buyer judges color, finish or texture against the order to come.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A subset of a population systematically selected for measurement or questioning, chosen so the results reflect the whole population.

   The pollsters drew a representative sample of likely voters.

   Small samples can introduce significant bias into the findings.

   Similarcross-section, subset, selection

   Note

   In statistics the question is never only what a sample shows, but how far it can be trusted. Larger samples vary less, so they are generally more reliable, and a systematic or random drawing lets the results generalize within known bounds of error. A blood sample stands for the body just by being part of it, as a specimen does. This kind of sample must earn its standing by how it was chosen.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To take or test a portion of something in order to examine it.

   Technicians sample the air quality at the site every morning.

   The chef sampled the sauce before serving it to guests.

   Similartest, taste, try, check

   Note

   The verb reaches well beyond tasting. Mark Twain still uses it of food in The £1,000,000 Bank-Note (1893). However, Frank Richard Stockton's The Adventures of Captain Horn (1895) has a servant eager to sample the delights of Paris, and Railway Magazine writers sample the roar of London streets and a luxury express's comfort. It suits any first, partial taste of an experience, often with a hint of pleasure.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   In music production, to take a section of an existing recording and use it again in a new track.

   Hip-hop artists frequently sample funk and jazz records from the 1970s.

   She sampled a vocal hook from an obscure b-side and looped it.

   Similarborrow, lift, reuse, quote

   Note

   This verb belongs to the recording studio and to the copyright lawyer alike. What is sampled is a recording, not a melody: you sample a record, a drum break, a vocal hook. The compound sample-based grows from it, and Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola's Creative License (2011) shows the legal puzzle it raises: whether a sample-based work is substantially similar to the recording it sampled. Keep it apart from the signal-processing sense.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   An instance of gratuitous borrowing of an easily recognized phrase or moment from other music or film, inserted into a recording.

   Critics complained the album leaned on obvious samples instead of original writing.

   Every track features at least one recognizable sample from a hit film.

   Similarsnippet, excerpt, clip, quotation

   Note

   Here the borrowing is meant to be noticed. The phrase or film moment works because the audience recognizes where it came from, and the word in this use can carry a note of complaint: a recording that leans on its source instead of writing its own. Critics speak of obvious samples, while the producer's verb names the act itself without judging it.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To convert a continuous signal, such as a sound wave, into a discrete signal made of separate measured values.

   Engineers sample the analog waveform before it is stored as digital data.

   The converter samples the voltage at regular intervals.

   Similardigitize, measure

   Note

   The engineer's sense, and the one behind every digital recording. A smooth signal is measured at regular intervals, and how often it is measured is the sampling rate. If it is measured too seldom, below the Nyquist criterion, the result is aliasing: false frequencies that were never in the original. The music producer's verb reuses a recording, whereas this one digitizes it.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To produce or display something that resembles a given sample.

   Artists can sample a seamless brick-wall texture from a single photograph of a few bricks.

   Each frame's sky is sampled from a lower-resolution panorama to save memory.

   Similargenerate, synthesize, derive

   Note

   Graphics programmers read values from a texture or image at chosen points and build an appearance from them. For this reason, the verb often takes from: a larger image field can be sampled from a lower-resolution copy. The idea is close to the signal-processing sense, but the output here is something to look at, and the concern is how little detail is lost.

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