| 释义 |
▪ I. bias, a., n., and adv.|ˈbaɪəs|
Forms: 6–7 biace, (? 6 byess), 6–8 byas, (7 biais, biase, biaz), 7–8 biass, byass, 6– bias. Pl. biases; also 6 bias, 6–9 biasses, 7 byasses.
[a. F. biais, in 14th c. ‘oblique, obliquity’, = Pr. biais (cf. OCat. biais, mod. biaise, biase; also Sardinian biasciu, It. s-biescio awry, in Piem. sbias); of unknown origin. The conjecture of Diez that it is:—L. bifax, bifacem, explained by Isidore as duos habens obtutus ‘looking two ways,’ is rejected by later Romanic scholars as phonetically untenable. Originally an adjective, as in Pr. via biayssa cross or oblique road; but early used as a n. in French, so that the first quotable example in Eng. is of the subst. use. The latter became a technical term at the game of bowls, whence come all the later uses of the word. With pl. biases, cf. atlases, crocuses.]
A. adj. (Sense 1 is original; 1 b and 2 appear to be derived from senses of the n.)
†1.
a. Slanting, oblique. bias line: (in early geometry) a diagonal or hypotenuse. [Cf. OF. (Oresme, 14th c.) une figure quarrée et le dyametre qui la traverse biais.] Obs. Cf. bias-wise, -ways.
1551Recorde Pathw. Knowl. ii. xxxii, By the Bias line, I meane that lyne, whiche in any square figure dooth runne from corner to corner. 1601Holland Pliny 953 (R.) Her oblique and byass declination. 1688R. Holme Acad. Arm. ii. 351 Some shells are crooked and byas.
b. spec. in dress (cf. B 1): Cut across the texture, slanting.
1815La Belle Assemblée in Jane Austen Persuasion (Chapman, 1933) 274 This pelisse is trimmed..with byas white satin laid on in folds. 1883Daily News 22 Sept. 3/3 A wide bias band of wall⁓flower velvet. 1884Girl's Own Paper Aug. 681/1 Plain skirts, trimmed with flat bias bands.
2. ‘Swelled as the bowl on the biased side’ J.
1606Shakes. Tr. & Cr, iv. v. 8 Thy sphered Bias cheeke.
B. n.
1. An oblique or slanting line; cf. A 1. Now app. only in the spec. sense of a wedge-shaped piece or gore, cut obliquely to the texture of a woven fabric. on the bias: diagonally, across the texture.
1530Palsgr. 198/1 Byas of an hose, bias. 1538Bale Thre Lawes 513 Take me a napkyn folte, With the byas of a bolte. c1570Ld. Semple Three Taverners ix, Now gif ye..shape it precyslie, The ellwand wald be grit & lang, Gif the byess be wyde, gar lay it on side. 1880Melbourne Bulletin 29 Oct. 5/1 The clothing..may not be cut on the bias. 1884West. Daily Press 2 June 7/2 All skirts are..cut with a curved bias.
2. a. A term at bowls, applied alike to: The construction or form of the bowl imparting an oblique motion, the oblique line in which it runs, and the kind of impetus given to cause it to run obliquely. Thus a bowl is said ‘to have a wide or narrow bias,’ ‘to run with a great’ or ‘little bias’; the player ‘gives it more’ or ‘less bias’ in throwing it.
It is difficult to decide in which sense exactly bias was here first used. A priori we think of the oblique line of motion: this is favoured also by the quotations under C. and bias-wise; yet early quotations here point rather to the oblique one-sided structure or shape of the bowl. Formerly bias was given by loading the bowls on one side with lead, and this itself was sometimes called the bias; they are now made of very heavy wood, teak or ebony, and the bias given entirely by their shape, which is that of a sphere slightly flattened on one side and protuberant on the other, as if composed of the halves of an oblate and a prolate spheroid.
1570tr. Life 70 Abps. Canterb. B v. marg., As you haue sett youre bias, so runneth your bowle. 1596Shakes. Tam. Shr. iv. v. 25 Well, forward, forward, thus the bowle should run, And not vnluckily against the Bias. 1643T. Goodwin Wks. (1861) III. 492 A bowl..is swayed by the bias, and lead that is in it. 1692Bentley Boyle Serm. ii. 71 If it [the Bowl] be made with a Byas, that may decline it a little from a straight line. 1692South 12 Serm. (1697) I. 444 A bowl may lie still for all its Byass. 1710Norris Chr. Prudence i. 22 The Bowl will run, not as the Hand directs, but as the Bias leads. 1728Pope Dunciad i. 170 O thou, of business the directing soul, To human heads like byass to the bowl. 1753Chambers Cycl. Suppl., Bias of a bowl is a piece of lead put into one side, to load and make it incline towards that side. 1822Hazlitt Men & Manners Ser. ii. iv. (1869) 89 The skittle-player bends his body to give a bias to the bowl he has already delivered from his hand. 1851A. W. Hare Serm. viii. I. 133 Just as a bowl with a bias, if you try to send it straight, the longer it rolls, the further it will swerve. 1864Athenæum No. 1920. 209/1 A bias that should reach the jack.
b. Figurative senses taken from the game of bowls.
1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (1811) 205 Her bosome sleake as Paris plaster, Helde vp two balles of alabaster, Eche byas [i.e. nipple] was a little cherrie. 1593Shakes. Rich. II, iii. iv. 5 'Twill make me thinke the World is full of Rubs, And that my fortune runnes against the Byas. 1581Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 66 To finde a matter quite mistaken, and goe downe the hill agaynst the byas, in the mouth of some such men. 1618G. Mynshul Ess. Prison (1638) 17 To bee a bowle for every alley, and run into every company, proves thy mind to have no bias. 1625Bacon Ess., Wisd. Man's Self (Arb.) 185 Which set a Bias vpon the Bowle, of their owne Petty Ends. 1714C. Johnson Country Lasses ii. ii, Joy shall be the jack, pleasure the bias, and we'll rowl after happiness to the last moment of life.
c. Cricket. The turning of a ball in its course from the leg side towards the off after pitching. Also attrib.
1833J. Mitford in Gent. Mag. Sept. 238 The plan adopted by good batters against slow bias bowling was successful. Ibid. 239/1 His balls..have a very perplexing bias. 1921Ld. Harris Few Short Runs v. 135 The bowler was not slow to take advantage of the opening by developing anew the old ‘bias’ or break from leg.
3. transf.
a. An inclination, leaning, tendency, bent; a preponderating disposition or propensity; predisposition towards; predilection; prejudice.
1572tr. Buchanan's Detect. Mary in Love-lett. (1824) 125 She cometh to her own bias, and openly showeth her own natural conditions. 1577Holinshed Chron. I. 166/1 They cease their crueltie for a time, but within a-while after fall to their bloudie bias. 1620Quarles Jonah (1638) 38 To change the byas of her crooked wayes. 1643Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. §1 Though..the byas of present practise wheel another way. 1768Blackstone Comm. III. 361 The law will not suppose a possibility of biass or favour in a judge. 1827Hare Guesses (1859) 13 A proof of our natural bias to evil. 1829Southey Inscript. xlv, My intellectual life received betimes The bias it hath kept. 1830Sir J. Herschel Stud. Nat. Phil. iii. i. (1851) 241 If the bricks..had all a certain leaning or bias in one direction out of the perpendicular. 1878Lecky England in 18th C. II. vi. 179 They could have no possible bias in favour of the Irish.
b. Statistics. A systematic distortion of an expected statistical result due to a factor not allowed for in its derivation; also, a tendency to produce such distortion.
1900Phil. Mag. L. 167 The results show a bias from the theoretical results, 5 and 6 points occurring more frequently than they should do. 1911G. U. Yule Introd. Theory Statistics xiv. 277 Such an examination may be of service..as indicating one possible source of bias, viz. great heterogeneity in the original material. 1943M. G. Kendall Adv. Theory Statistics I. viii. 189 If the observer was unbiased the digits should appear in approximately equal numbers; but there is a bias in favour of all the even numbers and against the odd numbers 1, 3 and 9.
†4. Set course in any direction, ordinary ‘way.’ from or out of the bias: out of the way. to put out of or off one's bias: to put out, disconcert, confuse, put into disorder. Obs.
1588Marprel. Epist. (1843) 51 Marke what wil be the issue..if you still keep your olde byas. 1600Dekker Gentle Craft Wks. 1873 I. 30 Well Master all this is from the bias, doe you remember the Shippe. c1619R. Jones Serm. in Phenix (1708) II. 478 Such strange opinions as would turn the whole world out of bias. 1642Howell For. Trav. 142 Here it will not be much out of the byas, to insert a few verses. 1741Richardson Pamela (1824) I. 272 There is no putting him out of his bias. He is a regular piece of clock-work. 1752Hume Pol. Disc. ii. 30 Superstition, which throws the Government off its bias. 1799Wolcott (P. Pindar) Nil Adm. Wks. 1812 IV. 266 And turn even Bishops off from Wisdom's bias.
5. a. A swaying influence, impulse, or weight; ‘any thing which turns a man to a particular course, or gives the direction to his measures’ (J.)
1587Turberville Trag. T. (1837) 206 That to the end he might the maid Unto his bias bring. 1595Shakes. John ii. 577 This vile drawing byas, This sway of motion, this commoditie. 1642Fuller Holy & Prof. State iv. iv. 254 In his prime he [Wolsey] was the bias of the Christian world, drawing the bowl thereof to what side he pleased. a1659Cleveland Wks. (1687) 82 In what a puzzling Neutrality is the poor Soul, that moves between two such ponderous Biasses! 1660W. Secker Nonsuch Prof. 430 The love of God is the byas of a Volunteer. 1705Stanhope Paraphr. II. 196 The Bribery and Byass of Sense and Flesh. 1851Gladstone Gleanings IV. xxxix. 28 He could not possibly be under any bias.
†b. Centre of gravity (as that which determines the direction of motion in a falling body). rare.
1674Petty Disc. bef. R. Soc. 126 I suppose in every atom..two poles in its superficies, and a Central point within its substance, which I call its Byas.
6. Telegr. (See quot. 1940.)
1885W. Williams Man. Telegr. c. 47 The force of restitution is no longer effected simply by the bias of the tongue but by an opposite current drawing it back. 1902Encycl. Brit. XXXIII. 221/2 With the tongue set neutral, having no bias either to the spacing or marking side—the relay will give good signals with 1½ milliamperes of current. 1940Chambers's Techn. Dict. 89/1 Bias, the adjustment of a telegraph relay so that it operates for currents greater than a given current (against which it is biased), or for a current of one polarity.
7. Electr. A steady voltage or current applied to an electronic device (see quot. 1960); also attrib.
1922Electrical Review 30 June 928/1 Security from undesired operation is obtained by the introduction of a controlling bias, and distinction is made between earth faults..and phase faults. 1926[see grid 5 b]. 1932F. E. Terman Radio Engin. xi. 392 The regeneration increases as the total amplification A1A2 and the bias impedance Zc are increased. 1940Chambers's Techn. Dict. 89/1 Bias voltage, generally, the mean potential of any electrode in a thermionic tube, measured with respect to the cathode. Specially applied to that of the control grid. 1942Electronic Engin. XV. 9 The sensitivity of the receiver is adjusted by varying the bias of the..amplifiers. 1960H. Carter Dict. Electronics 28 Bias, steady direct voltage applied between the cathode and control electrode of a thermionic tube in order to determine its working point. Ibid. 119 Grid bias, steady negative potential applied to the control grid of a thermionic valve or other tube in order to pre-set the no-signal value of the cathode current.
C. adv. [Cf. on the bias, F. en biais, de biais.]
1. Obliquely, aslope, athwart. Obs. exc. of dress.
1575Laneham Lett. (1871) 25 Wold run hiz race byas among the thickest of the throng. 1598Sylvester Du Bartas i. iv. (1641) 33/1 That rich Girdle..Which God gave Nature..To weare it biaz, buckled over-thwart-her. 1601Holland Pliny xxvii. iv. (R.) The leaves be..chamfered or chanelled biais all along. 1616Surfl. & Markh. Countr. Farm 349 It should be..cut byas, as wedges are. 1656Sir J. Finett For. Ambass. 32 Placed..on the King's right hand, not right out but byas forward. 1878G. H. Napheys Phys. Life Women, A body-case of strong linen, cut bias.
†2. fig. Off the straight, awry, wrong, amiss. to run bias on, to: to fall foul of, attack. Obs.
1600Rowlands Let. Humours Blood i. 47 His tongue runs byas on affaires. 1606Shakes. Tr. & Cr. i. iii. 15 Euery action that hath gone before..Triall did draw Bias and thwart, not answering the ayme. 1618Bolton Florus (1636) 264 Metellus..who always ranne bias to the mighty, detracted Pompey. 1633G. Herbert Constancie vii. in Temple 64 When the wide world runnes bias.
D. Comb. bias binding, a narrow strip of cloth cut on the bias and used for binding (cf. sense A 1 b); bias-cut a., cut on the bias; bias-drawing vbl. n., a turning awry or from the truth; bias-eyed a., oblique-eyed. Also biaswise, q.v.
1606Shakes. Tr. & Cr. iv. v. 169 Faith and troth, Strain'd purely from all hollow bias drawing. 1883Glasgow Wkly. Her. 12 May 2/7 The bias-eyed son of the sun [Chinaman] manipulated the gummy mass. 1927New Butterick Dressmaker xix. 174 Bias bindings make attractive finishes either in the same or in a contrasting material or color. 1931Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Oct. 844/3 The teacher..may perhaps think that in these days of ‘bias bindings’ it is not worth while to put children to the pains of making curved hems. 1960Woman's Realm 2 Apr. 36/4 Bind napkin all round with red bias binding. 1960Lebende Sprachen V. 35/1 Bias-cut. 1969Guardian 30 July 7/4 Bias cut skirts flare out from the hips.
Add:[7.] b. In recording on magnetic media, a high-frequency waveform on which the signal is superimposed in order to avoid distortion; also, the magnetic field generated by this waveform.
1949Frayne & Wolfe Elem. of Sound Recording xxix. 588 The unmagnetized wire or tape is subjected in the recording magnet to a field compounded of the audio signal and a high-frequency component called the bias. 1961G. A. Briggs A to Z in Audio 22 The strength of bias should be adjusted for optimum results with each type of tape. 1986Making Music Apr. 35/1 Vesta recommend TDK SA-X or Maxell XL115 cassettes (ie high bias types only, as usual).
▸ U.S. Designating an attack or (violent) crime motivated by hatred or intolerance of another social group, usually on the basis of race or sexuality. Cf. hate crime n. at hate n.1 Additions.
1954N.Y. Times 13 Nov. 20/7 (headline) Bias attack on Ribicoff denied... John F. McCoy..pleaded innocent today to charges of attacking the Democratic Governor-elect, Abraham A. Ribicoff, on religious grounds in the election campaign. 1985Record (Bergen County, New Jersey) (Nexis) 14 July a47 Future shows..will focus on such issues as ethnic terrorism and ‘bias-crime’ incidents. 1993Time Internat. 18 Jan. 8/2 Local law-enforcement officials need to develop greater sensitivity toward bias offences. 1999R. W. Bailey Gay Politics, Urban Politics ix. 271 The first commissioner to deal seriously with bias crimes, including those against lesbians and gay men.
▪ II. bias, v.|ˈbaɪəs|
Also 7 biace, 7–8 byas, byass, 7–9 biass.
[f. prec. n. Cf. F. biaiser, Pr. biaisar. In inflexions, often spelt biasses, biassed, biassing; though the single s is more regular; cf. the n.]
1. trans. To give bias to (a bowl); to furnish with a weight or bias; cf. biased 1.
1662Dryden Wild Gallant iv. i, Your Bowl must be well bias'd to come in.
2. transf. and fig.
a. To give a bias or one-sided tendency or direction to; to incline to one side; to influence, affect (often unduly or unfairly).
a1628F. Greville Sidney (1652) 60 To biace Gods immortal truth to the fantasies of mortall Princes. 1646S. Bolton Arraignm. Err. 239 Beware of being byassed with carnall and corrupt affections. 1683Burnet tr. More's Utopia (1685) 122 Men whom no Advantages can byass. a1711Ken Hymnar. Poet. Wks. 1721 II. 108 By Grace our Wills may byass'd be. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 89 If his judgment had not been biassed by his passions. 1875Hamerton Intell. Life ii. iii. 66 Artists are seldom good critics of art, because their own practice biasses them, and they are not disinterested.
b. To incline to or towards; to cause to swerve.
1643T. Goodwin Wks. (1861) III. 488 We shall..not be biassed aside. 1712Steele Spect. No. 491 ⁋2 Without any Vice that could biass him from the Execution of Justice. 1801Strutt Sports & Past. Introd. 4 Such exercises as..biased the mind to military pursuits. 1862Lytton Str. Story I. 216 Whether..it was the Latin inscription..that had originally biased Sir Philip Derval's literary taste towards the mystic jargon.
†c. To influence or incline (one) to do anything.
1722De Foe Moll Fl. (1840) 255 She soon biassed me to consent. 1747Gould Eng. Ants 93 Mr. Ray..and other Naturalists, are hence byassed to believe the Curiosity.
†3. intr. To incline to one side, to swerve from the right line. Obs.
1622Heylin Cosmogr. ii. (1682) 191 Without partiality, or byassing on either hand. 1640Sanderson Serm. II. 158 The hearts of such as byass too much that way. 1645City Alarum 20 Many great Patriots in the beginning have since byased. 1687A. Lovell Bergerac's Comic Hist. ii. 21 That made me imagine that I byassed towards the Moon.
4. trans. To cut bias. U.S.
1883Century Mag. XXVI. 960/1 You may baste, you may bias the Gore if you will.
5. Electr. To apply bias (bias n. 7) to. Hence ˈbias(s)ing ppl. a. and vbl. n.
1922Electrical Review 30 June 928/1 The equipment for each end of the line of a 3-phase system comprises three protective transformers, a biasing transformer, an earth fault relay, [etc.]. 1923Meare & Neale Electr. Engin. Practice (ed. 4) xv. 511 Illustrating the principle of the biassed transformer. Ibid., The ‘restraining’ or ‘biassing’ winding BB produces a flux as shown on the dotted line. 1930Engineering 31 Oct. 543/2 The multiplier circuits are heavily biassed. 1944Electronic Engin. XVI. 336 Bias the valve so that the anode current is normally zero or small. 1953Amos & Birkinshaw Telev. Engin. (1957) I. vi. 117 The signal plate is biased approximately 30 volts positive with respect to the cathode. 1962Simpson & Richards Junction Transistors ix. 213 (heading) Other biasing methods. |