Sample Is Example With the Front Worn Off
A sample is a small part that represents the whole. The word is example with its first syllable rubbed away by centuries of speech.
A sample is a small quantity taken to represent a larger whole. It is the same word as *example*: Middle English speakers wore away the unstressed opening syllable until *essample* became *sample*, and the two forms then drifted into separate jobs. English does this often — *squire* from *esquire*, *sport* from *disport*, *fence* from *defence*.
- A representative part. *A blood sample.*
- A free trial portion. *Free samples at the counter.*
- In statistics — the group studied. *A sample of two thousand.*
- In music — a fragment reused in a new track. *The drum sample.*
- Verb, to try. *We sampled the local cheese.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | sample | A soil sample. |
| Plural | samples | Six samples. |
| Verb | sample | Sample the sauce. |
| Noun | sampling | Random sampling. |
| Doublet | example | A clear example. |
- The sample was too small to draw conclusions from.Statistics.
- He sampled a four-second horn riff.Music production.
- Take a sample and label it.Laboratory.
What makes a sample useful
- Size — too few cases and the result is noise
- Randomness — everyone in the population needs a real chance of selection
- Bias — a sample of volunteers is not a sample of people
- Representative — the sample should look like the population in the ways that matter
- Margin of error — the honest admission that a sample is not the whole
Middle English *sample*, a clipped form of Old French *essample*, from Latin *exemplum*. The loss of the first syllable is called aphesis and is common in English.
Are sample and example the same word?
Historically yes — they are doublets from Latin exemplum. Sample lost its first syllable and then specialised in meaning.
What is sampling in music?
Taking a recorded fragment and reusing it in a new piece. It became a defining technique of hip hop in the 1980s.