Sampling

How to spell sampling

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sampling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sampling mean?

1. nounThe act of taking a small representative portion of something to test, assess, or analyse it.
2. nounThe practice of taking a section of an existing sound recording and reusing it in a new piece of music.

Sampling in a sentence

• The water authority carried out routine sampling of the reservoir.

• The producer was sued over the unauthorised sampling of a classic drum track.

• Random sampling kept the survey results free from obvious bias.

• Digital sampling transformed how hip-hop records were built in the studio.

Where does sampling come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows from 'sample', which English took from the Old French essample, a shortened form of essemple meaning 'a specimen' or 'an example'. That French word descends from the Latin exemplum, literally 'something taken out' to show what the rest is like, built on eximere meaning 'to take out' (from ex- 'out' and emere 'to take or buy'). The same Latin root sits inside the everyday word 'example', which is really just a fuller form of the very same idea. The noun 'sample' settled into English in the medieval period, and the -ing form developed naturally to name the act of taking specimens, whether of physical material, opinions in a survey, or sounds in a recording studio. The spelling stays tidy because 'sample' ends in a silent e that is dropped before -ing, leaving a single p rather than a doubled one.

How the word is built

• sample (from Old French essample: a specimen, example)
• -ing (forming a noun or present participle)