I. ikˈspirēən(t)s, ek-, -pēr- noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin experientia, from experient-, experiens (present participle of experiri to try, from ex- ex- (I) + -periri — akin to periculum attempt, peril) + -ia -y — more at fear
1. obsolete
a. : a trial or test
make experience of my loyalty by some service — James Shirley
b. : a tentative trial : experiment
a story of I know not what experiences they have made — Walter Blithe
c. : a conclusive proof : demonstration
the experience that Pyrrhus hath given of the Roman power — Walter Raleigh †1618
2. : direct observation of or participation in events : an encountering, undergoing, or living through things in general as they take place in the course of time
what we call education and culture is … the substitution of reading for experience , of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real — G.B.Shaw
she knew by prevision what most women learn only by experience — Thomas Hardy
3.
a. : the state, extent, duration, or result of being engaged in a particular activity (as a profession) or in affairs generally
ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion — Thomas De Quincey
gaining … business experience and developing a character recognized for its industry and ambition — C.W.Mitman
b. obsolete : something approved by or made on the basis of such experience
saw the schools … full of pretty curiosities and experiences, mechanical, mathematical, and hydraulic — Richard Lassels
4. : knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events : practical wisdom resulting from what one has encountered, undergone, or lived through
tell him that he ought to get experience , see the world, join a political party, and … make sure that he participates in the habitual activities of his society — Delmore Schwartz
5.
a. : the sum total of the conscious events that make up an individual life
all that we know and feel and do, all our facts and theories, all our emotions and ideals and ends may be included in … experience — James Ward
b. : the sum total of events that make up the past of a community or nation or that have occurred within the knowledge of mankind generally
the organized groups whose life has been the experience of the peoples of the West — Official Register of Harvard University
6. : something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through: as
a. : an event observed or participated in
a series of the author's reprinted papers which augment the stories of his personal experiences — John Cushing
b.
(1) : a state of mind that forms a significant and often crucial part of one's inner religious life and that is sometimes accompanied by intense emotion
in the writings of the earlier Friends, in the diaries and journals that record their intimate and inward experiences — Kate W. Tibbals
(2) : an account of such an experience — see experience meeting
c. : illicit sexual relations
a mere nineteen, a kid, when he had his experience with her — James Jones
7. : something by which one is stimulated or moved
the only one of our new playwrights who has given me … an experience in the theater — Louis Kronenberger
New Mexico was the greatest experience from the outside world that I have ever had — D.H.Lawrence
8. philosophy
a. : the act or process of perceiving or apprehending
experience is a matter of the interaction of organism with its environment, and environment that is human as well as physical, that includes the materials of tradition and institutions as well as local surroundings — John Dewey
b. : the content or the particular result of such experience
c. : the discriminative reaction or the nonconscious response of an organism to events or happenings within its environment
9. : insurance loss record
the favorable mortality experience of the past several years — P.M.Fraser
II. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
1.
a. archaic : to put to the test : try
persuade their governess to experience their zeal — Thomas Pennant
b. obsolete : to ascertain, prove, or reveal by observation or participation
this trial has … experienced to me my sad weakness — Rachel Russell
2. obsolete : to teach by experience : exercise , train
experience thy soul in the comforts of Christ's dying — Richard Whitlock
3.
a. : to have experience of : meet with : feel , suffer , undergo
the first need for the reader of poetry is to experience its impact — Mary M. Colum
the reason death was feared was because no man could twice experience it — Stuart Cloete
the cane planters often experience a lack of workers — P.E.James
b. : to learn by experience : find out : discover
I have experienced that a landscape and the sky unfold the deepest beauty — Nathaniel Hawthorne
4. : to respond or react discriminatively to (a set of events within the environment) — used of an organism
Synonyms:
undergo , sustain , suffer : experience indicates an actual living through something and coming to know it firsthand rather than through hearsay or report
a weak and transient feeling to what I now experienced — W.H.Hudson
real people, not labor units, figures in reports, but persons? It is persons who experience life — J.B.Priestley
undergo may apply especially to that which one bears or endures or is subjected to
undergoing a major operation
the air was charged with tension. She saw that he was undergoing a difficult struggle — Irving Stone
part of the ceremony of purification which he must undergo before partaking of the new fruits of the season — J.G.Frazer
sustain in this sense suggests undergoing affliction or infliction without necessarily bearing up with resolution
the two dropped supine into chairs at opposite corners of the ring as if they had sustained excessive fatigue — G.B.Shaw
a few years later he sustained something like a heatstroke, which weakened his resistance to climatic conditions — A.D.H.Smith
the company sustained large-scale losses in the venture
suffer , often interchangeable in this sense with sustain , may more strongly implicate wrong or injury
here is a ruthless anatomy of that loneliness which conditions life in the Arctic and is a continuing mystery because the men who suffer it gladly have thick enough skins to find an easy shelter — Times Literary Supplement
women in government are democratic and will not suffer the servility of subordination — H.J.Laski
with frightful atrocities suffered mostly by the McCoys — A.F.Harlow
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- experience religion