experience
Americannoun
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experiences
plural
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a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something.
My encounter with the bear in the woods was a frightening experience.
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the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something.
business experience.
-
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.
-
knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone.
a man of experience.
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Philosophy. the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.
verb (used with object)
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experiences,
present (3rd person singular)
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experienced,
past participle, past
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experiencing
present participle
idioms
noun
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direct personal participation or observation; actual knowledge or contact
experience of prison life
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a particular incident, feeling, etc, that a person has undergone
an experience to remember
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accumulated knowledge, esp of practical matters
a man of experience
-
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the totality of characteristics, both past and present, that make up the particular quality of a person, place, or people
-
the impact made on an individual by the culture of a people, nation, etc
the American experience
-
-
philosophy
-
the content of a perception regarded as independent of whether the apparent object actually exists Compare sense datum
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the faculty by which a person acquires knowledge of contingent facts about the world, as contrasted with reason
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the totality of a person's perceptions, feelings, and memories
-
verb
-
to participate in or undergo
-
to be emotionally or aesthetically moved by; feel
to experience beauty
Usage
What is another way to say experience? To experience something is to meet with it or feel it firsthand. How is experience different from undergo? Find out on Thesaurus.com.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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preexperiencenoun
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reexperienceverb
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experienceableadjective
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experiencelessadjective
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postexperienceadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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experiencesimple
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experiencessimple
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have experiencedperfect
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has experiencedperfect
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am experiencingprogressive
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are experiencingprogressive
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is experiencingprogressive
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have been experiencingperfect progressive
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has been experiencingperfect progressive
Past
-
experiencedsimple
-
had experiencedperfect
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was experiencingprogressive
-
were experiencingprogressive
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had been experiencingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of experience
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, Middle French, from Latin experientia, equivalent to experient- (stem of experiēns, past participle of experīrī “to try, test”; see ex- 1, peril) + -ia noun suffix; see -ence
Explanation
If you experience something, you go through an unusual or exciting event. If you're experiencing the world's loopiest roller coaster, you'd better hope that the amusement park doesn't experience a power outage. Sometimes experience means accumulated knowledge and sometimes it refers to a single spectacular event. If you have experience in cooking, you have worked in a restaurant before. Learning by experience is a method of acquiring knowledge by doing and not by reading. On the other hand, when you come back from summer camp, your mom will want to hear about your experiences. And white-water rafting is quite an unforgettable experience.
Vocabulary lists containing experience
"Seventh Grade" by Gary Soto
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Michelle Obama's Speech at the 2016 DNC
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Schooled
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
“It de-skills us. In any conversation with a human being, you say your piece, and the person says, ‘yes, but’ or ‘I have a different life experience.’
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Conducted from 1979 through the 2000s, the project followed more than 5,000 people to better understand why certain ethnic populations experience higher health risks.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
“Should the parent/affiliate company experience financial stress, negative impacts to the insurer are heightened due to the higher exposure,” it said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
“I feel like this whole thing was a once-in-a.lifetime thing. I don’t know that we’ll ever experience anything like this again. And I’m happy about that.”
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
D’Amaro is no stranger to the D23 stage; in his past role as parks chief, he would give updates on the latest news for the experiences division.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
Travel site TripAdvisor currently lists more than 140 such experiences in the Maldives alone.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Mangione, wearing tan jail garb, told the judge that after enduring severe pain, and witnessing others with similar experiences, he learned of the company’s investor conference.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Each member nation had its own specific interests because each had had different experiences in the previous 150 years of British and French intrusion, including the French and Indian War.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Families of deployed sailors have pushed back, accusing Trump and Hegseth of dismissing what their loved ones have experienced aboard the ship.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
"It brought back the fear, anxiety, and despair we experienced at the height of war," she said, requesting anonymity for security concerns.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
Researchers found that people who had been taking digoxin and then had to stop experienced significantly more problems during the first six weeks compared with people who had never taken the drug.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
After initially struggling to get help, he was diagnosed and prescribed antidepressants, but he had experienced anxiety long before then.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
“I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life,” the boy recalled.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
"With this change, this rebirth we are experiencing as a country...it's a different atmosphere, more peaceful, more enjoyable, and with greater freedom of expression," said Sosa.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
The Navy has acknowledged mental health cases but disputed reports that the ship is experiencing a broader crisis.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
Many other flights between LAX and Hawaii continued to operate Saturday, with some experiencing delays.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
The Navy has said that the ship isn’t experiencing an uptick in mental-health issues, and Cao acknowledged “a small number of mental-health cases were treated with no loss of life.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
I could tell she thought we were experiencing the kind of thing she would probably call a breakthrough.
From "The Thing About Jellyfish" by Ali Benjamin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
