Also 7 biace, 7–8 byas, byass, 7–9 biass. [f. prec. sb. Cf. F. biaiser, Pr. biaisar. In inflexions, often spelt biasses, biassed, biassing; though the single s is more regular; cf. the sb.]
1. trans. To give bias to (a bowl); to furnish with a weight or bias; cf. BIASED 1.
1662. Dryden, Wild Gallant, IV. i. Your Bowl must be well bias’d to come in.
2. transf. and fig. To give a bias or one-sided tendency or direction to; to incline to one side; to influence, affect (often unduly or unfairly).
a. 1628. F. Greville, Sidney (1652), 60. To biace Gods immortal truth to the fantasies of mortall Princes.
1646. S. Bolton, Arraignm. Err., 239. Beware of being byassed with carnall and corrupt affections.
1683. Burnet, trans. More’s Utopia (1685), 122. Men whom no Advantages can byass.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnar., Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 108. By Grace our Wills may byass’d be.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 89. If his judgment had not been biassed by his passions.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, II. iii. 66. Artists are seldom good critics of art, because their own practice biasses them, and they are not disinterested.
b. To incline to or towards; to cause to swerve.
1643. T. Goodwin, Wks. (1861), III. 488. We shall … not be biassed aside.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 491, ¶ 2. Without any Vice that could biass him from the Execution of Justice.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., Introd. 4. Such exercises as … biased the mind to military pursuits.
1862. Lytton, Str. Story, I. 216. Whether … it was the Latin inscription … that had originally biased Sir Philip Derval’s literary taste towards the mystic jargon.
† c. To influence or incline (one) to do anything.
1722. De Foe, Moll Fl. (1840), 255. She soon biassed me to consent.
1747. Gould, Eng. Ants, 93. Mr. Ray … and other Naturalists, are hence byassed to believe the Curiosity.
† 3. intr. To incline to one side, to swerve from the right line. Obs.
1622. Heylin, Cosmogr., II. (1682), 191. Without partiality, or byassing on either hand.
1640. Sanderson, Serm., II. 158. The hearts of such as byass too much that way.
1645. City Alarum, 20. Many great Patriots in the beginning have since byased.
1687. A. Lovell, Bergerac’s Comic Hist., II. 21. That made me imagine that I byassed towards the Moon.
