Experimenting

How to spell experimenting

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce experimenting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does experimenting mean?

1. verbTrying out new methods, ideas, or materials to see what results they produce.

Experimenting in a sentence

• The chef has been experimenting with seasonal vegetables on the new menu.

• Our team is experimenting with a four-day working week this quarter.

Where does experimenting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the Latin experimentum, meaning 'a trial' or 'a test', which was built on the verb experiri, 'to try out' or 'to put to the proof'. That verb combines the prefix ex-, 'out' or 'thoroughly', with an old root periri, 'to try' or 'to risk', the same root that lurks behind the words 'peril' and 'expert' (literally someone who has been thoroughly tried). English took 'experiment' as a noun through Old French in the 1300s, and the verb sense of testing or trying things out followed soon after, giving us the present participle 'experimenting'. The middle of the word preserves that ancient 'try' element, which is why the unstressed vowels in experi-ment are easy to slip on when writing it from memory. The link to 'peril' is a useful memory hook: an experiment was originally something genuinely risky to attempt.

How the word is built

• ex- (out, thoroughly)
• peri (try, test, from Latin periri)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle)