sampling

Pluralsamplings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process or technique used to obtain a representative sample from a larger population.

   Like checking a handful of items off a long assembly line to judge the whole batch.

   Random sampling reduced the chance that any one neighborhood would skew the results.

   Poor sampling can make even a large study unreliable.

   Similarselection

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The electronic splicing of previously recorded sound fragments into a new composition, especially in hip-hop or electronic dance music.

   Like quoting a line from another writer and building a new paragraph around it.

   Her latest album leans heavily on sampling, weaving fragments of jazz into electronic beats.

   Legal disputes over uncleared sampling have shaped the business of hip-hop.

   Note

   A production technique rather than a measurement: the musician lifts a fragment of an existing record and builds it into new work. The verb is to sample a track. Because the borrowed sound belongs to someone else, the word often travels with legal language. Getting permission for a borrowed fragment is called clearing it, so unlicensed borrowing is uncleared sampling.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A small selection taken or offered to represent a larger whole.

   Like a movie trailer that shows a few scenes to hint at the whole film.

   The report included a sampling of customer complaints from the past year.

   She gave the class a sampling of poems from different centuries.

   Similarselection, cross-section, assortment, taste

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   In statistics, the study of a group through measuring the traits of a substantial, randomly chosen share of its members.

   Election forecasts rely on sampling a few thousand voters to represent millions.

   Careful sampling kept the survey's margin of error low.

   Similarpolling, surveying

   Note

   Statisticians use the word for the whole inference, not only the act of choosing. They measure some members of a group and reason from them to all of it. Chance selection is what keeps that reasoning honest, since no one gets to pick the convenient cases. The general technique stresses getting a fair sample. This sense stresses what the sample is then used to conclude, which is why sampling and margins of error are discussed together.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The measurement, at regular intervals, of a varying waveform's amplitude in order to convert it into digital form.

   CD audio uses sampling at 44,100 times per second.

   Engineers chose a sampling rate high enough to capture every audible frequency.

   Note

   An engineer's word for turning a smooth, continuous wave into a string of separate readings taken at evenly spaced moments. The key figure is the sampling rate, quoted as readings per second. The more often the wave is measured, the finer the detail the digital copy keeps. In audio talk, keep it apart from the musician's borrowing, which reuses finished recordings rather than measuring a signal.

6. 6
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sample.

   She is sampling each wine before deciding what to order.

   Sampling the local food was the best part of the trip.

   Note

   The -ing form of the verb does double duty. It works as a progressive (she is sampling the wines) and as a gerund (sampling the food was the best part). As a gerund it still takes a direct object with no "of". Once it takes an article, an "of" phrase or the plural samplings, it has become the noun, as in a small selection: a sampling of poems.

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