All 3 Uses

bias
in
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
(Auto-generated)

The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line.†
Chpt 1 *

bias = a personal preference; or any tendency to move in a particular direction
And she held that what her conscience had decided for her when her mind was unbiassed ought not to be overruled now.†
Chpt 4

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.
They were not worldly young fellows, but fraternizing with dairy-folk would have struck unpleasantly upon their biased niceness, apart from their views of the match.†
Chpt 4

biased = created a personal preference; or creates a tendency to move in a particular direction

Definitions:

(1) (bias)
a tendency to favor one side -- in people, a prejudice that affects fair judgment; more generally, any built-in lean to move or behave in a particular way (like a car that pulls 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