A WORD A DAY.

Southland Times, Issue 21580, 18 December 1931, Page 8

A WORD A DAY.

BIAS. This word does yeoman service, being used as an adjective, adverb, verb, and noun. As an adjective, it means "diagonal, slanting,” and is applied especially to fabrics, as “the garment was featured by its bias design”; as an adverb it means “in a slanting manner, obliquely,” as, “the cloth was cut bias”; as a verb it means “to give a bias to, to incline to one side, to give a particular direction to, to influence,” as, “the judge was biased.” It is as a noun, however, that the word is most frequently employed. Used thus, the sense is sometimes “a diagonal or slant,” especially of a cut or seam in a piece of cloth. More generally we use the word in a figurative sense, applying it. to “a leaning of the mind, a tendency, an inclination, a prejudice.” It is here some scholars profess to find light on the root of the French biais, “a slope, slant,” from which we copied our word. They point out that the French word very likely goes back to the Latin bifacem, used in the sense of “looking sidewise, or sidelong, squinting.” This appearance, of course, is characteristic of one who has his own “slant on things,” is biased, and is giving an indifferent, skeptical hearing to the other side. Bi-as is accented on the first syllable; sound i as in ice, a as in account. “His bias was based upon ignorance.”