Adjectives for word experience

The idea for the Describing Words engine came when I was building the engine for Related Words (it’s like a thesaurus, but gives you a much broader set of related words, rather than just synonyms). While playing around with word vectors and the «HasProperty» API of conceptnet, I had a bit of fun trying to get the adjectives which commonly describe a word. Eventually I realised that there’s a much better way of doing this: parse books!

Project Gutenberg was the initial corpus, but the parser got greedier and greedier and I ended up feeding it somewhere around 100 gigabytes of text files — mostly fiction, including many contemporary works. The parser simply looks through each book and pulls out the various descriptions of nouns.

Hopefully it’s more than just a novelty and some people will actually find it useful for their writing and brainstorming, but one neat little thing to try is to compare two nouns which are similar, but different in some significant way — for example, gender is interesting: «woman» versus «man» and «boy» versus «girl». On an inital quick analysis it seems that authors of fiction are at least 4x more likely to describe women (as opposed to men) with beauty-related terms (regarding their weight, features and general attractiveness). In fact, «beautiful» is possibly the most widely used adjective for women in all of the world’s literature, which is quite in line with the general unidimensional representation of women in many other media forms. If anyone wants to do further research into this, let me know and I can give you a lot more data (for example, there are about 25000 different entries for «woman» — too many to show here).

The blueness of the results represents their relative frequency. You can hover over an item for a second and the frequency score should pop up. The «uniqueness» sorting is default, and thanks to my Complicated Algorithm™, it orders them by the adjectives’ uniqueness to that particular noun relative to other nouns (it’s actually pretty simple). As you’d expect, you can click the «Sort By Usage Frequency» button to adjectives by their usage frequency for that noun.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source mongodb which was used in this project.

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His face and hands were covered with huge blisters, and it was not necessary either Sergeant Corney or I should ask how he came by them, for we knew through bitterest experience what the squaws and children would do when a white man was at their mercy.

Though the California bears have as yet had but little experience with honeybees, they often succeed in reaching their bountiful stores, and it seems doubtful whether bees themselves enjoy honey with so great a relish.

This book is an attempt to gather together certain recognised principles, and to show in the light of actual experience how these may be applied to existing circumstances.

The religious life of a young child is very direct: there is only a little in the religious experiences of the Jews that can help him, and much that can puzzle and hinder him; their interpretation of God as revengeful, cruel and one—sided in His dealings with their enemies must greatly puzzle him, when he hears on the other hand that God is the Father of all the nations on the earth.

He has had a good education, followed by perhaps a year or two abroad, and some practical experience in sociological work.

Such is the sad experience of Yours Reverentially, CHINCAPEN.

To some children the ideal home life comes only through literature: daily experiences rather contradict it.

This was another exciting feat; for, among all the varied experiences of mountaineers, the crossing of boisterous, rock—dashed torrents is found to be one of the most trying to the nerves.

The enemy had had a painful experience of it and was not likely to wish to fight in that country again; consequently it was decided to hold this part of the line with light forces.

Thus also, in spiritual experiences, there are currents which we cannot measure or describe.

As long as we keep to the notion of one all—inclusive Spirit, the Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show that sin is but relatively evil, that it is, when viewed absolutely, as much a factor of the universal life as is righteousness; yet surely this is not to account for so large and obstinate a part of our experience, but to deny it.

After considerable experience I have decided that the best route for a man to take to the gold regions is from Seattle, Washington, to Juneau, Alaska, and then to Dawson City, by the pass and waterways, and I will therefore describe this route more in detail than any of the others.

It was a very unpleasant experience.

Subsequent experience confirmed this view, and more than twenty years later she remarks «It is necessary to be discreet in dealing with Mohammedans, for if the spirit of bitterness is once aroused, the door is shut, for the time at least, against good influences.«

She revealed in her poetic works her own inner experience, and a perusal of them will give indications of her own growth in holiness.

Perhaps the most curious experience was in the case of a young husband who deserted his wife and infant child.

« In both these cases, though the argument seemed fair, the conclusion was false; for had either the king or the chief taken the trouble to satisfy himself of the fact, he might have found that his limited experience had deceived him.

Certainly they were having a novel experience, and if Uncle John would feel easier to have them listen to the howling coyotes from inside the limousine instead of outside, they could not well object to his request.

would they not, on the other hand, be disposed to conduct themselves equally well as the other African slaves before mentioned, when they came to know, that they were immediately to be prepared for the reception of this great blessing, the first guarantee of which would be an immediate and living experience of better laws and better treatment?

Richard Avenarius defends the principle of «pure experience.«

Plotinus, provided with an Imperial rescript, undertook the regulation of his philosophical commonwealth in Campania, where a brief experience of architects and sophists threw him into an ecstasy, not of joy, which endured an unusually long time.

«It is a very fortunate circumstance, for it cannot be a pleasant experience to be under suspicion of being an assassin.

How true it is that «a great many people in this world have only one form of rhetoric for their profoundest experiences, namelyto waste away and die.

These boatmen were all jolly, good—natured and pleasant people, with a vast deal of practical sense, and a valuable experience in woodcraft, albeit they were rough and unpolished.

At dinner the conversation turned upon Thursday Smith and his peculiar experience.

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English experience, from Old French, from Latin experientia (“a trial, proof, experiment, experimental knowledge, experience”), from experiens, present participle of experiri (“to try, put to the test, undertake, undergo”), from ex (“out”) + peritus (“experienced, expert”), past participle of *periri (“to go through”); see expert and peril. Displaced native Old English āfandung (“experience”) and āfandian (“to experience”).

Pronunciation[edit]

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪkˈspɪɹ.i.əns/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪkˈspɪə.ɹɪəns/
• Hyphenation: ex‧pe‧ri‧ence

Noun[edit]

experience (countable and uncountable, plural experiences)

1. The effect upon the judgment or feelings produced by any event, whether witnessed or participated in; personal and direct impressions as contrasted with description or fancies; personal acquaintance; actual enjoyment or suffering.

   It was an experience he would not soon forget.

   • March 20, 1684-5, John Sharp, Sermon preached at Whitehall

     Those that undertook the religion of our Savior upon his preaching, had no experience of it.

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[1]:

     “I have tried, as I hinted, to enlist the co-operation of other capitalists, but experience has taught me that any appeal is futile that does not impinge directly upon cupidity. […] ”

2. (countable) An activity one has performed.
3. (countable) A collection of events and/or activities from which an individual or group may gather knowledge, opinions, and skills.

   • 1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC:

     they knew soone by experience how slenderly guarded against danger, the majestie of Rulers is

   • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 2, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book I, page 1:

     Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer in one word, from experience.

4. (uncountable) The knowledge thus gathered.

   • 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:

     In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.

5. (obsolete, uncountable) Trial; a test or experiment.

Usage notes[edit]

• Adjectives often applied to «experience»: broad, wide, good, bad, great, amazing, horrible, terrible, pleasant, unpleasant, educational, financial, military, commercial, academic, political, industrial, sexual, romantic, religious, mystical, spiritual, psychedelic, scientific, human, magical, intense, deep, humbling, unforgettable, unique, exciting, exhilarating.

Antonyms[edit]

• inexperience

Hyponyms[edit]

• (activity one has performed): user experience

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

experience (third-person singular simple present experiences, present participle experiencing, simple past and past participle experienced)

1. (transitive) To observe certain events; undergo a certain feeling or process; or perform certain actions that may alter one or contribute to one’s knowledge, opinions, or skills.

Synonyms[edit]

• undergo

Derived terms[edit]

• experienceable
• re-experience. reexperience

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

• experience at OneLook Dictionary Search
• experience in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• «experience» in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 126.
• “experience”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• experience in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Further reading[edit]

• experience on Wikipedia.Wikipedia