BIAS (biassed, biassing)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: biassed    , biassing   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bias mean? 

• BIAS (noun)
  The noun BIAS has 2 senses:

1. a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation

2. a line or cut across a fabric that is not at right angles to a side of the fabric

  Familiarity information: BIAS used as a noun is rare.

• BIAS (adjective)
  The adjective BIAS has 1 sense:

1. slanting diagonally across the grain of a fabric

  Familiarity information: BIAS used as an adjective is very rare.

• BIAS (verb)
  The verb BIAS has 2 senses:

1. influence in an unfair way

2. cause to be biased

  Familiarity information: BIAS used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BIAS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

bias; preconception; prejudice

Hypernyms ("bias" is a kind of...):

partiality; partisanship (an inclination to favor one group or view or opinion over alternatives)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bias"):

taboo; tabu (a prejudice (especially in Polynesia and other South Pacific islands) that prohibits the use or mention of something because of its sacred nature)

irrational hostility (extreme prejudice)

experimenter bias ((psychology) bias introduced by an experimenter whose expectations about the outcome of the experiment can be subtly communicated to the participants in the experiment)

homophobia (prejudice against (fear or dislike of) homosexual people and homosexuality)

Islamophobia (prejudice against Muslims)

racism (the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races)

tendentiousness (an intentional and controversial bias)

Derivation:

bias (cause to be biased)

bias (influence in an unfair way)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A line or cut across a fabric that is not at right angles to a side of the fabric

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

bias; diagonal

Hypernyms ("bias" is a kind of...):

straight line (a line traced by a point traveling in a constant direction; a line of zero curvature)

• BIAS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Slanting diagonally across the grain of a fabric

Context example:

a bias fold

Similar:

oblique (slanting or inclined in direction or course or position--neither parallel nor perpendicular nor right-angled)

• BIAS (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they bias    ... he / she / it biases    / biasses   
Past simple: biased    / biassed   
Past participle: biased    / biassed   
-ing form: biasing    / biassing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Influence in an unfair way

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Context example:

you are biasing my choice by telling me yours

Hypernyms (to "bias" is one way to...):

prejudice; prepossess (influence (somebody's) opinion in advance)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "bias"):

handicap (attempt to forecast the winner (especially in a horse race) and assign odds for or against a contestant)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

bias (a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to be biased

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

bias; predetermine

Hypernyms (to "bias" is one way to...):

prejudice; prepossess (influence (somebody's) opinion in advance)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "bias"):

angle; slant; weight (present with a bias)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

bias (a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation)

 Context examples 

Previous studies have shown evidence of "biased" signaling inside cells, where one pathway becomes more active than another.

(Heart Disease Severity May Depend on Nitric Oxide Levels, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

"We knew there were inherent biases in these systems around race and ethnicity and we suspected there would also be problems around gender," said senior author Jed Brubaker.

(Facial recognition software has a gender problem, National Science Foundation)

The research team on this new study therefore wanted to determine whether similar biases occurred in the identification of expressions of positive emotion, such as happiness or joy.

(White people’s perceptions of the emotions on black people’s faces are less accurate than their perceptions among other white people, University of Granada)

Many earlier attempts to estimate the number of species on Earth ignored microorganisms or were informed by older datasets based on biased techniques or questionable extrapolations.

(Researchers find that Earth may be home to 1 trillion species, NSF)

Might some of us, more than others, harbor Neanderthal-derived gene variants that may bias our brains toward trading sociability for visuospatial prowess – or vice versa?

(“Residual echo” of ancient humans in scans may hold clues to mental disorders, National Institutes of Health)

A method for reducing bias in which half of the treatment arrays swap with half of the control arrays in each permutation.

(Balanced Permutation, NCI Thesaurus)

Biases can lead to incorrect conclusions about what the study or clinical trial showed.

(Bias, NCI Dictionary)

Based on fact or observable phenomena and not on personal feeling or bias.

(Objective, NCI Thesaurus)

A coded value specifying the type of masking used on a study protocol to ensure that the results are not biased by the subjects or investigators.

(Interventional Study Protocol Version Blinding Schema Code, NCI Thesaurus)

An individual qualified to perform an evaluation who is masked from a subject's data in order to minimize bias or maximize consistency and quality.

(Independent Rater, NCI Thesaurus)