bias

Universal Words noun, verb noun 1 [U,C,usually sing.] a strong feeling in favour of or against one group of people, or one side in an argument, often not based on fair judgement: accusations of political bias in news programmes (= that reports are unfair and show favour to one political party) * Employers must consider all candidates impartially and without bias. * Some institutions still have a strong bias against women. 2 [C,usually sing.] an interest in one thing more than others; a special ability: The course has a strong practical bias. * Leila had a marked scientific bias. 3 [U,sing.] the bias of a piece of cloth is an edge cut DIAGONALLY across the threads: The skirt is cut on the bias. * a bias strip verb (-s- or -ss-) [VN] ~ sb/sth (towards / against / in favour of sb/sth) to unfairly influence sb's opinions or decisions: The newspapers have biased people against her.