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experiment Definition

ex·peri·ment (ek sper′ə mənt, ik-; also, & for v.usually, -ment; often, -spir′-)

noun

  1. a test or trial of something; specif.,
    1. any action or process undertaken to discover something not yet known or to demonstrate something known
    2. any action or process designed to find out whether something is effective, workable, valid, etc.
  2. the conducting of such tests or trials; experimentation

Etymology: ME < OFr < L experimentum, a trial, test < experiri: see peril

intransitive verb

to make an experiment or experiments

Related Forms:

experiment Synonyms

experiment

n.

  1. An operation to establish a principle or a truth

    trial, test, analysis, essay, examination, clinical trial, investigation, experimentation, inspection, search, organized observation, research, scrutiny, trial and error, speculation, check, proof, demonstration, verification, sifting, dissection, operation, exercise, probe.

  2. A trial arrangement

    undertaking, trial, probation, probation trial, agreement, attempt, pilot project, pilot, testing program, dry run, rehearsal, practice, venture, enterprise, measure, try, tryout; see also sense 1.

trial implies the trying of a person or thing in order to establish worth in actual performance hired on trial; experiment implies a showing by trial whether a thing will be effective the honor system was instituted as an experiment and, in addition, is used of any action or process undertaken to discover something not yet known or to demonstrate something known experiments in nuclear physics; test implies a putting of a thing to decisive proof by thorough examination or trial under controlled conditions and with fixed standards in mind a test of a new jet plane

experiment Synonyms

experiment

v.

  1. To investigate scientifically

    analyze, investigate, test, try, probe, search, venture, explore, diagnose, prove, conduct an experiment, research, verify, speculate, study, examine, scrutinize, weigh, assay, sample, dissect, make inquiry, follow a clue, put to the test, play around with*, fool with*, cut and try*.

  2. To put on trial

    test, rehearse, try out, test out, try tentatively, sample, put on one's honor, hold under probation, put through one's paces, try by ordeal, give an opportunity, practice upon, have a go*.

experiment Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • conduct: Those who wished to pursue this theory were free to apply to funding agencies for resources to conduct such experiments.
  • perform: Your strength is doing things, carrying out plans and performing experiments.
  • repeat: Blue red and comes standard with not repeat the experiment.
  • clon: It will also aid positional cloning experiments, by providing a resource for clone walking.
  • devise: What really astounds me, tho, is the apparently willful ignorance and short-sightedness of the various experiments devised by their vivisectors.
  • replicate: The second experiment replicated our earliest studies of ` pure ' conceptual closeness strategies.

Adjective modifier

  • repeatable: Moreover, Geller has never participated in repeatable experiments under conditions that would preclude fraud.
  • animal: The animal experiments that the alternatives are supposed to replace are then repeated.
  • scientific: Wallis, Sean ( 2003 ) Scientific experiments in parsed corpora: an overview.
  • failed: Where is the failed global experiment of this totalising rule by private corporate power ever raised?
  • numerical: Numerical experiments already now are able to simulate reliable vertical profiles of dissolved gas content at various times of the storm development.
  • psychological: Experimentation The system could be used in the context of a psychological experiment.

Preposition: on

  • primate: Experiments on primates have a long history of misleading scientists about AIDS.
  • animal: Experiments on animals did not link heart disease to cholesterol, or high blood pressure to strokes.

Noun used with modifier

  • laboratory: The purpose was to extract the lectins from these foods for use in laboratory experiments.
  • microarray: Currently, four data platforms exist to track array production, reporter ( spotted sequence ) annotation, microarray experiments and expression data.
  • physics: Particle physics experiments are performed at accelerators where the products of head-on collisions between matter and antimatter are studied with huge detectors.
  • diffraction: The neutron diffraction experiment is undertaken under relatively extreme conditions.
  • cross-testing: However, for the purpose of the cross-testing experiment, all PSV results were recorded to the nearest 0.1 PSV units.
  • scattering: Light scattering experiments have also shown that it has a tendency to aggregate.
experiment Quotes

It was an experiment, and I think a successful one, in communal living. It worked largely because Auden ran it; he was exceptionally adept at getting the necessary money out of us when it was due.

—Bowles, Paul Frederick

Theory is a good thing but a good experiment lasts forever.

—Kapitsa, Peter Leonidovich

Those who have handled scienceshave been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; thereasonersresemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance.But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Pure poetry is pure experiment†memorable nonsense.

—Sandys, George

We must trust to nothing but facts. These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive.We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.

—Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent

There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet and pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment has been fairly tried.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe