experience

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ɪkˈspɪə.ri.ən(t)s/, US /ɪkˈspɪr.i.ən(t)s/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English experience, borrowed from Old French experience (“experiment, proof, experience”),^[2][3][4] a learned borrowing from Latin experientia (“a trial, proof; knowledge gained by repeated trials”),^[2][3] from experiēns (“enterprising, experienced”), the present participle of experīrī (“to try, test”).^[2][5][6] The verb is formed from ex- (“out of”) and a lost verb *perīrī (“to go through”), whose past participle survives in perītus (“experienced, tested”),^[3][2] related to perīculum (“trial, risk”).^[3][7] Etymonline and the AHD trace it to Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to try, risk”).^[2][5] It is related to experiment, expert and peril.^[8][9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The actual observation of facts or events as a source of knowledge: 1377, in a version of Piers Plowman.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

In late Middle English the word also meant “a trial, test” and “an experiment”,^[10][4] senses it shared with experiment and which became obsolete by the 17th century.^[4] The fact of being consciously affected by an event is recorded from 1382,^[10] and the knowledge that comes from what one has undergone from 1553.^[10] The meaning “state of having done something and become skilled at it” is from the late 15th century,^[2] and “the events that have happened within one person's knowledge” from 1607.^[10][11] In religious use, from 1674, an experience was a state of mind forming part of the inner religious life.^[10] The verb first meant “to test, try” in 1533, in Sir Thomas Elyot's writings,^[3][10] and “to feel, suffer, undergo” from 1588.^[3][10] Experienced, “wise from experience”, is from 1569.^[3]

Timeline

• 1377 – observation as a source of knowledge (Piers Plowman).^[10][3]
• 1382 – being consciously affected by something.^[10]
• 1388 – a trial, a test (obsolete).^[10]
• 1533 – verb, to test, try (Elyot).^[3][10]
• 1553 – knowledge resulting from what one has undergone.^[10]
• 1569 – experienced.^[3]
• 1588 – verb, to feel, undergo.^[3][10]
• 1607 – what has been experienced; one's history.^[10]
• 1674 – a religious experience.^[10]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The perception of an object, thought or emotion through the senses or the mind.
2. Active involvement in events, and the knowledge or skill gained from it.
3. An event or series of events that someone lives through.
4. The whole of the events in a person's or a group's past.

Verb

1. To take part in personally; to undergo or feel.
2. (rare) To learn by experience.

Word family

• experiencer
• experienceable
• experienceless
• postexperience
• experiential
• experienced
• reexperience
• experience table

Related words

• experiment
• expert
• peril
• empirical

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary compares experience with suffer, sustain, taste and undergo, all meaning “to meet with personally”.^[12]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin