Both Uses of
bias
in
Don Quixote
- that with one finger he stopped a mill-wheel in full motion; and posted with a two-handed sword at the foot of a bridge he kept the whole of an immense army from passing over it, and achieved such other exploits that if, instead of his relating them himself with the modesty of a knight and of one writing his own history, some free and unbiassed writer had recorded them, they would have thrown into the shade all the deeds of the Hectors, Achilleses, and Rolands.†
Chpt 1.31-32 *unbiassed = without a personal preference; or without any tendency to move in a particular direction"Editor's Notes"This is more commonly spelled, unbiased. The prefix "un-" in unbiassed means not and reverses the meaning of biassed. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- But, as has been frequently observed in the course of this great history, he only talked nonsense when he touched on chivalry, and in discussing all other subjects showed that he had a clear and unbiassed understanding; so that at every turn his acts gave the lie to his intellect, and his intellect to his acts; but in the case of these second counsels that he gave Sancho he showed himself to have a lively turn of humour, and displayed conspicuously his wisdom, and also his folly.†
Chpt 2.43-44
Definitions:
-
(1)
(bias) a personal preference -- especially a prejudice that prevents objective consideration
or:
any tendency to move in a particular direction -- such as a car that tends to want to swerve toward the right -
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Specialized meanings of bias include:
- statistics: any of several errors that distort results
- textiles: a line or fold that is diagonal relative to the sides or grain of the fabric
- electronics: a steady-state current that is forced through an electronic device