bias

Inclination towards something.

Morality […] give[s] a bias to all their [men's] actions.

nature has pointed out a mixed kind of life as most suitable to the human race, and secretly admonished them to allow none of these biasses to draw too much

The diagonal line between warp and weft in a woven fabric.

A wedge-shaped piece of cloth taken out of a garment (such as the waist of a dress) to diminish its circumference.

A voltage or current applied to an electronic device, such as a transistor electrode, to move its operating point to a desired part of its transfer function.

The difference between the expectation of the sample estimator and the true population value, which reduces the representativeness of the estimator by systematically distorting it.

To place bias upon; to influence.

Our prejudices bias our views.

No doubt they overlook the L.M.R.'s allegedly faulty financial estimates for the Euston-Liverpool/Manchester scheme, which have biassed the Treasury, and perhaps the open-minded Dr. Beeching, against electrification without renewed examination of projects.

To give a bias to.

2002, H. Dijkstra, J. Libby, Overview of silicon detectors, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 494, 86–93, p. 87. On the ohmic side n⁺ is implanted to provide the ohmic contact to bias the detector.

Inclined to one side; swelled on one side.

Thou, trumpet, there’s my purſe; / Now cracke thy lungs, and ſplit thy braſen pipe: / Blow, villaine, till thy ſphered Bias cheeke / Out-ſwell the collicke of puft Aquilon: / Come, ſtretch thy cheſt, and let thy eyes ſpout bloud: / Thou bloweſt for Hector.

Cut slanting or diagonally, as cloth.