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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sample.

A part or snippet of something taken or presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsɑːm.pəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsam.pəl/Northern-England, Scotland/ˈsæm.pəl/General-American[ˈsɛəm.pəɫ]General-American
  1. A part or snippet of something taken or presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen.

    a blood sample
  2. A subset or portion of a population that is systematically selected for measurement, observation, or questioning, with the objective of generating statistical information that accurately reflects the characteristics of the entire population.

    Large samples are generally more reliable than small samples due to having less variability.
  3. A small quantity of food for tasting, typically given away for free.

  4. A small piece of some goods, for determining quality, colour, etc., typically given away for free.

  5. A borrowing of easily recognised phases (or moments) from other music (or movies) in a recording.

  6. Example; pattern.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English saumple, sample, from Old French essample (“example”), from Latin exemplum. Doublet of example and exemplum.

verb/ˈsɑːm.pəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsam.pəl/Northern-England, Scotland/ˈsæm.pəl/General-American[ˈsɛəm.pəɫ]General-American
  1. To take or to test a sample or samples of.

    transitive
  2. To reduce a continuous signal (such as a sound wave) to a discrete signal.

    transitive
  3. To reuse a portion of (an existing sound recording) in a new piece of music.

    transitive
  4. To make or show something similar to a sample.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English saumple, sample, from Old French essample (“example”), from Latin exemplum. Doublet of example and exemplum.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.