A portion, piece, or segment that is representative of a whole: showed samples of a new stretch fabric.

In music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds, or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated.

A small part or amount of something that is examined in order to find out something about the whole.