sample

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A portion, piece, or segment that is representative of a whole.
2. n. An entity that is representative of a class; a specimen. See Synonyms at example.
3. n. Statistics A set of elements drawn from and analyzed to estimate the characteristics of a population. Also called sampling.
4. n. A usually digitized audio segment taken from an original recording and inserted, often repetitively, in a new recording.
5. v. To take a sample of, especially to test or examine by a sample: the restaurant critic who must sample a little of everything.
6. v. To use or incorporate (an audio segment of an original recording) in a new recording: a song that samples the bass line of a 1970s disco tune.
7. adj. Serving as a representative or example: sample test questions; a sample piece of fabric.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Anything selected as a model for imitation; a pattern; an example; an instance.
2. n. A part of anything taken at random out of a large quantity and presented for inspection or intended to be shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a representative specimen: as, a sample of cloth, of wheat, of spirits, of wines, etc. Samples of textile fabrics are used extensively in retail as well as wholesale business, and in the large cities there are business houses most of whose dealings are with out-of-town customers by means of samples. Such samples are oblong, about twice as long as wide, and are generally stitched or pinned into little packages like books. Samples for wholesale trade are usually pasted or glued upon pattern-cards or pattern-books. See pattern-card, pattern-book.
3. n. Synonyms Specimen, Sample. See specimen.
4. To place side by side with something else closely similar, for the purpose of comparison or illustration.
5. To match; imitate; follow the pattern or method of.
6. To select, or take at random, a sample or specimen of; hence, to try or test by examining or using a specimen or sample: as, to sample sugar or grain; to sample wine.

Wiktionary

1. n. A part of anything taken or presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen; as, goods are often purchased by samples.
2. n. statistics A subset of a population selected for measurement, observation or questionicommeng, to provide statistical information about the population.
3. n. cooking a small piece of food for tasting, typically given away for free
4. n. business a small piece of some goods, for determining quality, colour, etc., typically given away for free
5. n. music Gratuitous borrowing of easily recognised phases (or moments) from other music (or movies) in a recording, used to emphasize a particular point by implying a certain context.
6. n. obsolete Example; pattern.
7. v. transitive To make or show something similar to; to match.
8. v. transitive To take or to test a sample or samples of; as, to sample sugar, teas, wool, cloth.
9. v. transitive, signal processing To reduce a continuous signal (such as a sound wave) to a discrete signal.
10. v. transitive To reuse a portion of (an existing sound recording) in a new song.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete Example; pattern.
2. n. A part of anything presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen.
3. v. To make or show something similar to; to match.
4. v. To take or to test a sample or samples of.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. take a sample of
2. n. all or part of a natural object that is collected and preserved as an example of its class
3. n. a small part of something intended as representative of the whole
4. n. items selected at random from a population and used to test hypotheses about the population