Word Direct Answers

What does "bias" mean?

Bias: A learning of the mind; propensity or prepossession toward an object or view, not leaving the mind indifferent; bent inclination. Strong love is a bias upon the thoughts. South. Morality influences men's lives, and gives a bias to all their actions. Locke.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A wedge-shaped piece of cloth taken out of a garment (as the waist of a dress) to diminish its circumference.
  2. 3.A slant; a diagonal; as, to cut cloth on the bias. See Bent.
  3. 4.Inclined to one side; swelled on one side. [Obs.] Shak.
  4. 5.Cut slanting or diagonally, as cloth.
  5. 6.In a slanting manner; crosswise; obliquely; diagonally; as, to cut cloth bias.
  6. 7.To incline to one side; to give a particular direction to; to influence; to prejudice; to prepossess. Me it had not biased in the one direction, nor should it have biased any just critic in the counter direction. De. Quincey.

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