experience: Meaning and Definition of

ex•pe•ri•ence

1. a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something: My encounter with the bear in the woods was a frightening experience.
2. the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something: business experience.
3. 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.
4. knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone: a man of experience.
5. the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.

1. to have experience of; meet with; undergo; feel: to experience nausea.
2. to learn by experience.
3. to undergo a spiritual conversion by which one gains or regains faith in God.