sample

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A portion, piece, or segment that is representative of a whole.
• noun A specimen taken for analysis or testing.
• noun Statistics A set of data or elements drawn from a larger population and analyzed to estimate the characteristics of that population.
• noun A usually digitized audio segment taken from an original recording and inserted, often repetitively, in a new recording.
• noun One of a series of pieces of data representing a digitized approximation of an analog signal.
• transitive verb To take a sample of, especially to test or examine by a sample.
• transitive verb To use or incorporate (an audio segment of an original recording) in a new recording.
• transitive verb To represent the value of (an analog signal) at a particular point in time by means of a piece of digital data.
• adjective Serving as a representative or example.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To place side by side with something else closely similar, for the purpose of comparison or illustration.
• To match; imitate; follow the pattern or method of.
• To select, or take at random, a sample or specimen of; hence, to try or test by examining or using a specimen or sample: as, to sample sugar or grain; to sample wine.
• noun Anything selected as a model for imitation; a pattern; an example; an instance.
• noun A part of anything taken at random out of a large quantity and presented for inspection or intended to be shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a representative specimen: as, a sample of cloth, of wheat, of spirits, of wines, etc.
• noun Synonyms Specimen, Sample. See specimen.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To make or show something similar to; to match.
• transitive verb To take or to test a sample or samples of.
• noun obsolete Example; pattern.
• noun A part of anything presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A part of anything taken or presented for inspection, or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole; a specimen; as, goods are often purchased by samples.
• noun statistics A subset of a population selected for measurement, observation or questionicommeng, to provide statistical information about the population.
• noun cooking a small piece of food for tasting, typically given away for free
• noun business a small piece of some goods, for determining quality, colour, etc., typically given away for free
• noun music Gratuitous borrowing of easily recognised phases (or moments) from other music (or movies) in a recording, used to emphasize a particular point by implying a certain context.
• noun obsolete Example; pattern.
• verb transitive To make or show something similar to; to match.
• verb transitive To take or to test a sample or samples of; as, to sample sugar, teas, wool, cloth.
• verb transitive, signal processing To reduce a continuous signal (such as a sound wave) to a discrete signal.
• verb transitive To reuse a portion of (an existing sound recording) in a new song.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb take a sample of
• noun all or part of a natural object that is collected and preserved as an example of its class
• noun a small part of something intended as representative of the whole
• noun items selected at random from a population and used to test hypotheses about the population