The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Experience \Ex*pe"ri*ence\ ([e^]ks*p[=e]"r[i^]*ens), n. [F.
   exp['e]rience, L. experientia, tr. experiens, experientis, p.
   pr. of experiri, expertus, to try; ex out + the root of
   peritus experienced. See Peril, and cf. Expert.]
   1. Trial, as a test or experiment. [Obs.]
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            She caused him to make experience
            Upon wild beasts.                     --Spenser.
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   2. 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. "Guided by other's experiences." --Shak.
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            I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and
            that is the lamp of experience.       --P. Henry
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            To most men experience is like the stern lights of a
            ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.
                                                  --Coleridge.
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            When the consuls . . . came in . . . they knew soon
            by experience how slenderly guarded against danger
            the majesty of rulers is where force is wanting.
                                                  --Holland.
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            Those that undertook the religion of our Savior upon
            his preaching, had no experience of it. --Sharp.
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   3. An act of knowledge, one or more, by which single facts or
      general truths are ascertained; experimental or inductive
      knowledge; hence, implying skill, facility, or practical
      wisdom gained by personal knowledge, feeling or action;
      as, a king without experience of war.
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            Whence hath the mind all the materials of reason and
            knowledge? To this I answer in one word, from
            experience.                           --Locke.
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            Experience may be acquired in two ways; either,
            first by noticing facts without any attempt to
            influence the frequency of their occurrence or to
            vary the circumstances under which they occur; this
            is observation; or, secondly, by putting in action
            causes or agents over which we have control, and
            purposely varying their combinations, and noticing
            what effects take place; this is experiment. --Sir
                                                  J. Herschel.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Experience \Ex*pe"ri*ence\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Experienced
   ([e^]ks*p[=e]"r[i^]*enst); p. pr. & vb. n. Experiencing
   ([e^]ks*p[=e]"r[i^]*en*s[i^]ng).]
   1. To make practical acquaintance with; to try personally; to
      prove by use or trial; to have trial of; to have the lot
      or fortune of; to have befall one; to be affected by; to
      feel; as, to experience pain or pleasure; to experience
      poverty; to experience a change of views.
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            The partial failure and disappointment which he had
            experienced in India.                 --Thirwall.
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   2. To exercise; to train by practice.
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            The youthful sailors thus with early care
            Their arms experience, and for sea prepare. --Harte.
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   To experience religion (Theol.), to become a convert to the
      doctrines of Christianity; to yield to the power of
      religious truth.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

experience
    n 1: the accumulation of knowledge or skill that results from
         direct participation in events or activities; "a man of
         experience"; "experience is the best teacher" [ant:
         inexperience, rawness]
    2: the content of direct observation or participation in an
       event; "he had a religious experience"; "he recalled the
       experience vividly"
    3: an event as apprehended; "a surprising experience"; "that
       painful experience certainly got our attention"
    v 1: go or live through; "We had many trials to go through"; "he
         saw action in Viet Nam" [syn: experience, see, go
         through]
    2: have firsthand knowledge of states, situations, emotions, or
       sensations; "I know the feeling!"; "have you ever known
       hunger?"; "I have lived a kind of hell when I was a drug
       addict"; "The holocaust survivors have lived a nightmare"; "I
       lived through two divorces" [syn: know, experience,
       live]
    3: go through (mental or physical states or experiences); "get
       an idea"; "experience vertigo"; "get nauseous"; "receive
       injuries"; "have a feeling" [syn: experience, receive,
       have, get]
    4: undergo an emotional sensation or be in a particular state of
       mind; "She felt resentful"; "He felt regret" [syn: feel,
       experience]
    5: undergo; "The stocks had a fast run-up" [syn: have,
       experience]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

136 Moby Thesaurus words for "experience":
   accept, acquaintance, adventure, affair, affect, affection,
   apprehend, awareness, background, be aware of, be conscious of,
   be exposed to, be sensible of, be subjected to, behold, blaseness,
   circumstance, common sense, consciousness, contact, corpus, data,
   datum, emotion, emotional charge, emotional shade, encounter,
   endure, episode, event, expertise, exposure, face, fact, facts,
   factual base, familiarity, feel, feel deeply, feeling,
   feeling tone, foreboding, go through, gut reaction, hap, happening,
   happenstance, have, have a sensation, hear, heartthrob, impression,
   incident, information, intelligence, intimacy, involvement,
   inwardness, judgement, ken, know, know-how, knowing, knowledge,
   labor under, live through, matter of fact, meet, meet up with,
   meet with, observation, occasion, occurrence, ordeal,
   participation, particular, pass through, passion, past experience,
   pay, perceive, percept, perception, phenomenon,
   practical knowledge, practice, presentiment, private knowledge,
   privity, profound sense, ratio cognoscendi, reaction, reality,
   receive, receive an impression, respond, respond to stimuli,
   response, response to stimuli, run up against, sagacity, sample,
   savoir faire, savor, savvy, seasoning, see, self-knowledge,
   sensation, sense, sense impression, sense perception,
   sensory experience, sentiment, skill, smell, sophistication, spend,
   stand under, suffer, survey, sustain, taste, technic, technics,
   technique, tempering, test, touch, trial, turn of events,
   undercurrent, undergo, view, wisdom, worldly wisdom



The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):

EXPERIENCE, n.  The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an
undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

    To one who, journeying through night and fog,
    Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,
    Experience, like the rising of the dawn,
    Reveals the path that he should not have gone.
                                                        Joel Frad Bink