experiential
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of experiential
From the Medieval Latin word experientiālis, dating back to 1640–50. See experience, -al 1
Explanation
Something experiential comes from the real world — from experience. Experiential things can be seen, touched, and verified. Some knowledge comes from reading about it. But experiential knowledge comes from actually doing and experiencing it. If you learned to sail by spending every summer on the water with your own boat, then you have an experiential understanding of sailing. If something is experiential, it's real, rather than conceptual. But you can't learn everything experientially. That's what books are for.
Vocabulary lists containing experiential
The Left Hand of Darkness
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Turtles All the Way Down
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Watch Us Rise
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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.
Mahendra Surela, curator of the Archaeological Experiential Museum in Vadnagar where the skeleton has now been shifted, told the BBC that the skeleton was transported with "utmost care" and under the supervision of several experts.
From BBC • May 16, 2025
Experiential subjectivity forms the essence of her human forms.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2024
There have been recent efforts to revive her works, including her Violin Concerto, written in the 1960s and now recorded by the Experiential Orchestra under James Blachly, with Curtis Stewart as the soloist.
From New York Times • Mar. 28, 2024
Experiential avoidance can take many forms, but a common method is emotional eating, which is the tendency to eat in response to negative emotions.
From Salon • Jul. 18, 2023
Experiential knowledge of nursing, years in which I came to know self and the other while implementing scientific facts, allowed me as a knower to recognize the relevance of this philosophical nursology method.
From Humanistic Nursing by Paterson, Josephine G.
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.
