Unbiased

How to spell unbiased

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce unbiased

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unbiased mean?

1. adjectiveFree from favouritism or prejudice; fair and impartial in judgement.

Unbiased in a sentence

• The panel wanted an unbiased review of every job application.

• A good auditor stays unbiased no matter who is paying the fee.

Where does unbiased come from?

Language of origin: French

The heart of this word is 'bias', which English borrowed in the 1500s from the French biais, meaning 'a slant' or 'an oblique angle'. The French term probably came in turn from a Latin or Greek source describing something set crosswise, and it first entered English as a technical word in the game of bowls, where a weighted bowl rolls on a curved, slanting line rather than straight. From that literal sense of a built-in lean came the figurative meaning of a mental tilt toward one side, a prejudice. The prefix 'un-' is the old native English negative, glossed simply as 'not', and the '-ed' ending turns the noun into an adjective, so 'unbiased' literally describes something with no built-in lean. The spelling trap lives in the middle: there is a single 's', and the modern standard form keeps just one (biased, not biassed), so the whole word reads un-bias-ed.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• bias (a leaning or inclination)
• -ed (adjective suffix)