bias
noun
a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned.
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In K-pop fandom, what does bias mean?
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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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:
A study of former NFL players who died from 2008 to 2023 estimates that 74.5% had CTE, accounting for bias in brain donations because the disease can be diagnosed only after death.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026
Exchanges create incentives for finding the truth, using market forces to burn away bias, while sportsbooks punish knowledge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026
This phenomenon stems in part from the just-world cognitive bias, the tendency to believe that the world is fundamentally fair and that good people are rewarded while bad people are punished.
From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2026
"When we apply the model weights to historical simulations, we completely eliminated the positive bias," said lead author Crystal Fu, from Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2026
Hence let’s begin by temporarily setting aside our human bias and considering disease from the microbes’ point of view.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Bias, child protection and intellectual property involve a much larger universe of developers and deployers, and existing regulatory models can answer those challenges.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
Bias: Hold; selective accumulation on pullbacks, particularly if trading activity and revisions improve.
From Barron's ● Apr. 23, 2026
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
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
Bias tape is threaded through the top and tied just above the bust.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
The findings also demonstrate why scientists must draw on several independent methods when reconstructing population histories, particularly when written records are incomplete, unreliable, or shaped by historical biases.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
In theory, systematic funds remove the emotionality and biases of human judgment by rigorously adhering to the rules set by their models.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026
Behavioral biases can tug investors in the direction of either panicking and holding on following a plunge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Oblivious to her own biases about who Leo is and why, Mallory poses as a therapist keen on saving his life, but uses their faux sessions to mine his story for literary gold.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026
Decades of cognitive bias research demonstrates that both unconscious and conscious biases lead to discriminatory actions, even when an individual does not want to discriminate.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
In their study, the researchers found that in nine of the 13 US areas they looked at, police data from periods of unlawful or biased policing was available to train these systems.
From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2026
With most of its population crowded along the U.S. border, economic gravity has always biased Canadian growth along north-south rather than east-west lines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Richard said it was massive to bring it back: "I may be a little bit biased but I think it's the biggest story in UK ice hockey this year."
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
However, those associations have generally been modest, and scientists have not been sure whether biased attention contributes to depression or develops because of it.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 29, 2026
Justice Department and several of the nation’s leading foundations, published in 2007, found that the impact of the biased treatment is magnified with each additional step into the criminal justice system.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
In a question of this kind the mind is perhaps unconsciously biassed by comparing one antiquarian idea with another.
From Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism With an Essay on Baal Worship, On The Assyrian Sacred "Grove," And Other by Thomas Inman
My Lewis always says that my figure is exactly right, but I dare say he's biassed.
From The War-Workers by E.M. Delafield
It has always been undertaken with some special practical problem in view, and is consequently always fragmentary and frequently biassed.
From Household Administration Its Place in the Higher Education of Women by Various
Travellers and missionaries have begun to read anthropological books, and their evidence is therefore much more likely to be biassed now by anthropological theories than it was of old.
From Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2) by Andrew Lang
Although his judges were biassed against him he was acquitted on each count, and the result was received with enthusiastic cheers by immense crowds within and without the court.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 6 "Home, Daniel" to "Hortensius, Quintus" by Various
That smaller sample means certain demographic groups may be over- or under-covered, biasing the total estimates.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
"If this person's goal, whether explicit or implicit, was in fact to understand the overall landscape of movies in this country, the algorithmic recommendation ends up seriously biasing one's understanding," the authors wrote.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 25, 2025
Much of the research in nutrition is funded by industry, which has been criticized for biasing the results.
From Salon ● May 1, 2025
Some economists viewed this increase as an anomaly given that the sector accounted for about 16% of total employment and speculated that a low response rate could be biasing the numbers higher.
From Reuters ● Oct. 3, 2023
The horse started off on a biasing canter, much to my amusement.
From Medoline Selwyn's Work by Hattie E. Colter
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
Even if he was going to revise his views, was it right, was it candid, was it loyal to the truth, that he should revise them under the biassing influence of Meenie's eyes?
From Strange Stories by Grant Allen
There would be no harm in biassing me in her favour.
From Ellen Middleton—A Tale by Georgiana Fullerton
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
However, this is beside the question; and I want to avoid biassing your decision in any way.
From Afloat at Last A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea by William Heysham Overend
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
