experiencing

Experiencing derives from the verb experience, with the present participle suffix -ing added to form experiencing, indicating ongoing action. The root noun experience comes from Old French experance, from Latin experientia, from experiri “to test, try, prove.” The Latin experientia meant a trial or proof, later expanding to refer to practical contact with facts, events, or emotions. In Middle English, experience evolved to include both practical knowledge gained from doing and the sense of undergoing events. By the 16th century, English used experiencing as a participle to describe ongoing processes of undergoing events, feelings, or sensations. The modern usage centers on ongoing or current process, often in progressive forms or adjectival phrases: experiencing stress, experiencing joy, experiencing changes. Evolutionwise, the word has retained its core sense of direct contact with real events while expanding to metaphorical domains, such as experiences in life, work, or learning, and increasingly in continuous aspect constructions in contemporary English. First known usage in its present participial form emerges alongside the broader development of progressive aspect in Early Modern English, aligning with Shakespearean and post-Shakespearean usage patterns that favored continuous action descriptions. Today, experiencing is a common, versatile word used in both formal and informal registers to convey ongoing exposure to events or emotions.