experiments

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of experiment.

   The lab's experiments produced conflicting results that took years to reconcile.

   A few early experiments hinted at the effect long before anyone could explain it.

   Note

   Only the test meaning really takes a plural today: experiments are run, conducted or carried out, and they agree with a plural verb. An older sense, now obsolete, meant experience or practical familiarity, which shows how close the word once stood to experience. In old prose, someone's experiments may be what they had lived through. The same spelling also serves as the verb's he/she/it form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of experiment.

   Each spring the gardener experiments with a different mix of seeds.

   The orchestra experiments freely with tempo during rehearsals.

   Note

   The he, she and it form of a verb that, in modern use, takes no direct object: a chemist experiments with solvents, and a lab experiments on cells. Transitive uses, in which someone experiments a thing in the sense of testing it or even feeling it, are obsolete. They belong to the same older overlap with experience noted at the plural noun. A modern sentence needs the preposition.

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