Skip to content
OneKitly

experiment

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ɪkˈspɛɹ.ɪ.mənt//
  • United Kingdom//ɛkˈspɛɹ.ɪ.mənt//
  • United Kingdom//ɪkˈspɛɹ.ɪ.mɛnt//
  • United States//ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt//
  • United States//ɪkˈspɪɹ.ə.mənt//
  • United States//ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mɛnt//

A test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried.

noun

  1. 1

    A test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried.

    conduct an experiment

    carry out some experiments

    perform a scientific experiment

    From her childhood she had been accustomed to watch, and often to aid, in her uncle's chemical experiments; she was, therefore, not at a loss, as a complete novice in the science would have been.

  2. 2

    obsoleteExperience, practical familiarity with something.

    Pilot [...] Vpon his card and compas firmes his eye, The maisters of his long experiment, And to them does the steddy helme apply [...].

Etymology

From Middle English experiment, from Old French esperiment (French expérience), from Latin experimentum (“experience, attempt, experiment”), from experior (“to experience, to attempt”), itself from ex + *perior, in turn from Proto-Indo-European *per-.

verb

  1. 1

    To conduct an experiment.

    We're going to experiment on rats.

    As well as demonstrating operating facilities, full-size car body models are used for experimenting with new types of interior finish, systems of lighting, positioning of route diagrams and advertisements, and the best form of windscreens at doorways, and the height and location of handgrips and handrails.

    Bob is a shameless tourist: Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, Twin Peaks, ad infinitum. I think walking the streets with a map in hand looks dumb; experimenting is much more fun.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo experience; to feel; to perceive; to detect.

    The Earth, the which may have carried us about perpetually ... without our being ever able to experiment its rest.

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo test or ascertain by experiment; to try out; to make an experiment on.

    Til they had experimented whiche was trewe, and who knewe most.

  4. 4

    To try something to observe the results.

    I want to experiment with psychedelics.

Forms

plural
experiments
past tense
experimented
past participle
experimented
present participle
experimenting
third person singular
experiments
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).