experience definition | Dictionary.com

ex⋅pe⋅ri⋅ence

[ik-speer-ee-uh

ns]

noun, verb, -enced, -enc⋅ing.

–noun

1.	a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something: My encounter with the bear in the woods was a frightening experience.

2.	the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something: business experience.

3.	the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time: to learn from experience; the range of human experience.

4.	knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone: a man of experience.

5.	Philosophy. the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.

–verb (used with object)

6.	to have experience of; meet with; undergo; feel: to experience nausea.

7.	to learn by experience.

—Idiom

8.	experience religion, to undergo a spiritual conversion by which one gains or regains faith in God.

Origin:
1350–1400; ME < L experientia, equiv. to experient- (s. of experiēns, ptp. of experīrī to try, test; see ex- ¹ , peril ) + -ia n. suffix; see -ence

Related forms:

ex⋅pe⋅ri⋅ence⋅a⋅ble, adjective

ex⋅pe⋅ri⋅ence⋅less, adjective

Synonyms:
6. encounter, know, endure, suffer. Experience, undergo refer to encountering situations, conditions, etc., in life, or to having certain sensations or feelings. Experience implies being affected by what one meets with: to experience a change of heart, bitter disappointment. Undergo usually refers to the bearing or enduring of something hard, difficult, disagreeable, or dangerous: to undergo severe hardships, an operation.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To experience

ex·pe·ri·ence (ĭk-spîr'ē-əns)

The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.
1. Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.
2. The knowledge or skill so derived.
3. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
4. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.
1. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
2. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.

tr.v. ex·per·i·enced, ex·per·i·enc·ing, ex·per·i·enc·es
To participate in personally; undergo: experience a great adventure; experienced loneliness.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin experientia, from experiēns, experient-, present participle of experīrī, to try; see per-³ in Indo-European roots.]
ex·pe'ri·enc·er n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Experience

Ex*pe"ri*ence\, n. [F. exp['e]rience, L. experientia, tr. experiens, ?entis, p. pr. of experiri, expertus, to try; ex out + the root of pertus experienced. See Peril, and cf. Expert.]

1. Trial, as a test or experiment. [Obs.]

She caused him to make experience Upon wild beasts. --Spenser.

2. The effect upon the judgment or feelings produced by any event, whether witnessed or participated in; personal and direct impressions as contrasted with description or fancies; personal acquaintance; actual enjoyment or suffering. "Guided by other's experiences." --Shak.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. --P. Henry

To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed. --Coleridge.

When the consuls . . . came in . . . they knew soon by experience how slenderly guarded against danger the majesty of rulers is where force is wanting. --Holland.

Those that undertook the religion of our Savior upon his preaching, had no experience of it. --Sharp.

3. An act of knowledge, one or more, by which single facts or general truths are ascertained; experimental or inductive knowledge; hence, implying skill, facility, or practical wisdom gained by personal knowledge, feeling or action; as, a king without experience of war.

Whence hath the mind all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer in one word, from experience. --Locke.

Experience may be acquired in two ways; either, first by noticing facts without any attempt to influence the frequency of their occurrence or to vary the circumstances under which they occur; this is observation; or, secondly, by putting in action causes or agents over which we have control, and purposely varying their combinations, and noticing what effects take place; this is experiment. --Sir J. Herschel.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : experience

Spanish: experiencia,

German: die Erfahrung,

Japanese: 経験

More Translations »

experience

1377, from O.Fr. experience, from L. experientia "knowledge gained by repeated trials," from experientem (nom. experiens), prp. of experiri "to try, test," from ex- "out of" + peritus "experienced, tested." The v. (1533) first meant "to test, try;" sense of "feel, undergo" first recorded 1588.

experience ex·pe·ri·ence (ĭk-spēr'ē-əns)
n.
The feeling of emotions and sensations as opposed to thinking; involvement in what is happening rather than abstract reflection on an event.

ex·pe'ri·ence v.

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