experience
Americannoun
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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.
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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.
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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)
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
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the impact made on an individual by the culture of a people, nation, etc
the American experience
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philosophy
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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
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verb
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to participate in or undergo
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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
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experiencedsimple
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had experiencedperfect
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was experiencingprogressive
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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:
“Today we have the most complete line-up in Ferrari history and we continue to experience healthy demand, with an order book that entirely covers 2027,” Chief Executive Benedetto Vigna said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
“The amount of time and money they’re spending on the coffee experience is insane,” Quick said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Playwrights from Shakespeare to Sondheim to Manuel-Miranda, meanwhile, write around human emotion and almost weaponize relatability to enrich the audience’s theater experience.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
"I wanted to read about the experience of actually finding fossils, you know, what it was like to actually discover something on the beach," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
For now, know that your father and I miss you terribly, but I am grateful you are getting to have this experience.
From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar
Sony Pictures’ reopening of the Cinerama Dome shows that the studio -- like many -- see an opportunity with in-person experiences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Broadway is home to several plays that address these issues head-on while bringing deeply human experiences to life in creative, even comedic ways.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
While she would secure sanctuary, of sorts, by avoiding a return to the African nation, her experiences over the following months were a far cry from the "glamourous" fortnight she had spent at the Olympics.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
Happiness is not stable, Mr. Epley tells us; it’s like a leaky tire that needs continual pumping up with positive experiences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
Powell’s experiences as a soldier would not permit one man and a screaming girl to scare him off.
From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson
Jan Paul van Hecke has also joined from Brighton in a £52m deal, alongside the free transfers of experienced trio Marcos Senesi, Andrew Robertson and Martin Dubravka.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
Another fire, that has been raging since last week slightly further west in Avila, is the largest Spain has experienced since records began in 1961, with around 50,000 hectares burnt.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
At the same time, the rate of information-sector applicants saying they plan to hire workers has experienced the sharpest decline of any measured industry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Crashes like the one experienced by Korea often illustrate where leverage is most pronounced.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
And what I felt in him was a kind of hunger that I had not experienced in more than eighty years.
From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman
Empathy, on stage, becomes a cornerstone of experiencing live performance that pulls heartstrings, inspires raucous laughter or elicits a collective groan when a poorly-hatched plan falters.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
U.S. tech bosses realized last year that China’s artificial-intelligence players weren’t experiencing the same scramble to find power for data centers thanks to the country’s massive rollout of renewable-energy infrastructure.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
On land, Japan is experiencing a severe heatwave with thousands of people needing hospital treatment over a week.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Some vendors at the Central Avenue Farmers Market are open to bartering or trading with customers experiencing food scarcity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
I could only imagine the school as I was experiencing it now, as a kind of museum, a relic from someone else’s life.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
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.
