experimenting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of experiment.

   Chemists experimenting with the compound noticed an unexpected color change.

   The team kept experimenting until the engine finally started.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here. In "the team kept experimenting" it is a participle carrying the action. In "experimenting takes patience" it is a verbal noun standing as subject. Either way the modern verb is intransitive, so what gets tested is introduced by a preposition, usually with. The transitive uses, meaning "to perceive" or "to try out," are obsolete. Once the -ing word takes a plural, it has become the noun for the activity.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The activity of testing ideas, methods, or materials to discover their effects or find what works.

   Scientific progress depends on careful experimenting and honest record-keeping.

   Months of experimenting with the formula finally produced a stable result.

   Similarexperimentation, testing, research

   Note

   A fully nominal use that can even be counted, which a gerund cannot. Steven Gans and Leon Redler's Just Listening (2001) speaks of "experimentings with group exercises and rituals," and the plural presents them as separate, tentative trials. Experimentation is the more usual noun for a settled practice. Experimenting, like the verb it comes from, still takes with to name what is being tried.

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