bias
noun
a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned.
bias
1 American
[bahy-uhs]
/ ˈbaɪ əs /
noun
-
biases
plural
-
a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned.
The hiring manager was found to have shown bias against job applicants who wore less expensive clothing.
The magazine’s bias is toward art rather than photography.
We need to set aside our strong bias in favor of the idea and evaluate it logically.
- Synonyms:
- leaning, bent, proclivity, partiality, predilection, preconception, predisposition
- Antonyms:
- impartiality
-
unreasonably hostile feelings or opinions about a social group; prejudice.
The show’s host has faced accusations of racial bias.
-
an oblique or diagonal line of direction, especially across a woven fabric.
-
Statistics. a systematic as opposed to random distortion of a statistic as a result of sampling procedure.
-
Electronics. the application of a steady voltage or current to an active device, such as a diode or transistor, to produce a desired mode of operation.
-
a high-frequency alternating current applied to the recording head of a tape recorder during recording in order to reduce distortion.
-
Lawn Bowling.
-
a slight bulge or greater weight on one side of the ball or bowl.
-
the curved course made by such a ball when rolled.
-
adjective
adverb
verb (used with object)
-
biases,
present (3rd person singular)
-
biased,
past participle, past
-
biassed,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
biasing,
present participle
-
biassing
present participle (especially British)
-
to cause to hold or exhibit a particular bias; to influence, especially unfairly.
The defendant gave a tearful plea designed to bias the jury.
The survey was heavily biased toward highly educated people.
- Synonyms:
- bend, predispose, dispose, incline
-
Electronics. to apply a steady voltage or current to (the input of an active device).
idioms
Bias
2
American
[bahy-uhs]
/ ˈbaɪ əs /
noun
bias
British
/ ˈbaɪəs /
noun
-
mental tendency or inclination, esp an irrational preference or prejudice
-
a diagonal line or cut across the weave of a fabric
-
electronics the voltage applied to an electronic device or system to establish suitable working conditions
-
bowls
-
a bulge or weight inside one side of a bowl
-
the curved course of such a bowl on the green
-
-
statistics
-
an extraneous latent influence on, unrecognized conflated variable in, or selectivity in a sample which influences its distribution and so renders it unable to reflect the desired population parameters
-
if T is an estimator of the parameter θ , the expected value of ( T–θ )
-
-
an inaudible high-frequency signal used to improve the quality of a tape recording
adjective
adverb
verb
Usage
Plural word for bias The plural form of bias is biases, pronounced [ bahy-uhs-eez ] or [ bahy-uhs-ehz ]. The plurals of several other singular words that end in -s are also formed this way, including alias/aliases, moss/mosses, and lens/lenses. However, bias is often used as a mass noun, meaning that in some instances bias may be used as either a singular or a plural form. The plural form biasses is obsolete and should be avoided.
Synonym Usage
Bias, prejudice mean a strong inclination of the mind or a preconceived opinion about something or someone. A bias may be favorable or unfavorable: bias in favor of or against an idea. Prejudice implies a preformed judgment even more unreasoning than bias, and usually implies an unfavorable opinion: prejudice against people of another religion.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
biassimple
-
biasessimple
-
have biasedperfect
-
have biassedperfect
-
has biasedperfect
-
has biassedperfect
-
am biasingprogressive
-
am biassingprogressive
-
are biasingprogressive
-
are biassingprogressive
-
is biasingprogressive
-
is biassingprogressive
-
have been biasingperfect progressive
-
have been biassingperfect progressive
-
has been biasingperfect progressive
-
has been biassingperfect progressive
Past
-
biasedsimple
-
biassedsimple
-
had biasedperfect
-
had biassedperfect
-
was biasingprogressive
-
was biassingprogressive
-
were biasingprogressive
-
were biassingprogressive
-
had been biasingperfect progressive
-
had been biassingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bias
First recorded in 1520–30; from Middle French biais “obliqueness,” from Old Provençal, probably from Vulgar Latin (e)bigassius (unrecorded), from Greek epikársios “oblique,” from epi- epi- + -karsios “oblique”; alternatively, from Vulgar Latin biaxius (unrecorded) “having two axes” ( see bi-, axis)
Explanation
Use the noun bias to mean a preference for one thing over another, especially an unfair one. Some biases are completely innocent: "I have a bias toward French wines." But most often, bias is used to describe unfair prejudices: "The authorities investigated a case involving bias against Latinos." It is also a verb meaning "to show prejudice for or against," as in "They claimed the tests were biased against women." (In British English, it takes an extra S in the forms biassed and biassing.) The word goes back at least to Old Provençal, a former language of southern France, in association with the sport of lawn bowling, where it referred to the tendency of a ball to roll in one direction or the other.
Vocabulary lists containing bias
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Argumentative Writing
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Our theory is that most of these distant sources are affected by this cosmological effect, creating an observational bias," said Rinaldi.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
Under former Fed Chair Jerome Powell, for instance, bond markets tended to be more reactive to his press conferences rather than the policy bias from statements by the Federal Open Market Committee.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
“We’ve got to allow ourselves to build outwards, not just upwards, and we’ve got to end the bias against single family homes,” Hilton said at a March forum hosted by the California Assn. of Realtors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
The central bank is expected to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 4.35% while retaining a bias toward further tightening, as inflation remains above target.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
But knowing their bias, how much credence can we give to their protests that insecticides are harmless?
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Members of UCLA’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, which in a 2024 report found “broad-based perceptions of antisemitic and anti-Israeli bias on campus,” did not sign.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026
The Bias case raised questions about the extent to which agents can control clients’ spending sprees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026
As a college senior, Bias bought an ankle-length fur coat, a Nissan 380ZX sports car and a gold bracelet encrusted with diamonds spelling his first name, the Washington Post reported.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026
That is the finding of a new research study, “Conflicting News, Negativity Bias, and Short-Term Return Predictability.”
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 24, 2025
Bias tape is threaded through the top and tied just above the bust.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
But all inevitably carry their own biases, and none have the intimate understanding, sustained commitment or enduring responsibility that parents have for their children.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The researchers found significant variability in the advice and spotted some potential demographic biases.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
The aim was to assess how their biases were affected by scene-by-scene content analysis of the racial representation of 29 popular kids shows and movies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
One of its core biases is that value stocks outperform growth stocks, which of course they haven’t for over a decade.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026
The kinds of biases we’re talking about here aren’t so obvious that it’s easy to identify a solution.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
His defence team has pointed to missing police reports, disputed evidence and "biased, sloppy and incomplete" detective work.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
He was freed after his conviction was overturned on procedural grounds, with the presiding judge also later ruled to have been biased.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
I’m definitely biased, but you’re moving to the best city in the world.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
“They have set up a system where it’s virtually impossible to sustain a biased policing complaint against an officer,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Propaganda uses misleading, biased, or exaggerated information to promote a political cause.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Christina thinks you're so anxious not to favour him because he's your nephew that you are positively biassed against him.
From Caesar's Wife A comedy in three acts by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham
It may be inaccurate, and biassed and acrid, but it presents the family circle from within by one of themselves, and no more vivid picture can exist of that strange cockatrice brood of Pitts.
From Lord Chatham His Early Life and Connections by Archibald Phillip Primrose Rosebery
He should not be biassed by any appearances; have no favourite hypothesis; be of no school; and in doctrine have no master.
From Heroes of Science: Physicists by William Garnett
He was not one to be biassed by personal feelings or beguiled by fair appearances, in the face of stubborn, unaccountable facts.
From The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume I (of 2) by Florence A. Thomas Marshall
Yet the man might be biassed; sympathy for the deceived might paint the deceiver's conduct in colours even blacker than the truth demanded.
From Second String by Anthony Hope
That meant that researchers could keep the organoids separated without biasing their experimental results.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2025
But he told Reuters in an interview that the economy is biasing the central bank in that direction.
From Reuters ● Sep. 14, 2023
In a 2020 study, epidemiologist Reem Masarwa, then a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues explored whether confounding factors such as heredity and maternal illness could be biasing acetaminophen research.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2023
It can mean, for example, that a forensics lab—already strapped for funding and time—needs an extra person to serve as a case manager who screens possibly biasing information from a blinded analyst.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 18, 2023
Such ideas as these are corrupting courts, and biasing the public mind, and the injury is more than apparent to the observer.
From The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation by Carry Amelia Nation
Still the attitude created by the Tubingen theory largely persists as a biassing element in much that is written about Acts.
From The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg
The subject is one of immense importance, and especially in this country, where it can seldom be discussed without adventitious circumstances biassing the inquirers.
From The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind by T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
He did not," he said, "state the impression upon his own mind with the purpose of biassing theirs.
From The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 1 by Sir Walter Scott
There would be no harm in biassing me in her favour.
From Ellen Middleton—A Tale by Georgiana Fullerton
But the truth is that, if we set aside matters of trivial import, the enormous majority of human judgments are those into which the biassing power off likes and dislikes more or less largely enters.
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 6 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Discussions by Robert Green Ingersoll
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
