experimentalist

American  

[ik-sper-uh-ment-uhl-ist] / ɪkˌspɛr əˈmɛnt əl ɪst /

noun

1. a person who enjoys experimenting or trying new things, especially in the arts.

2. a scientist whose research relies on experiments or who is skilled in designing and conducting them.

3. a person who subscribes to philosophical empiricism.

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adjective

1. fond of experimenting or trying new things, especially in the arts.

2. of or relating to a scientific or philosophical emphasis on experiment or experience rather than theory.

Example Sentences

But their emphasis here presents Man Ray, who was a talented portrait photographer, as an experimentalist chasing rather than creating imagery.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 27, 2025

Of course, many artists before her have dabbled in the avant-garde deconstruction of the songwriting craft — fellow experimentalist Juana Molina comes to mind.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 30, 2025

This playlist is a chronological tour through Charli XCX’s many eras, from her time as a precocious club kid to her more recent reign as a forward-thinking pop experimentalist.

From New York Times • Jun. 4, 2024

A muon collider’s ability to more clearly probe Higgs physics sets it apart, says Donatella Lucchesi, an experimentalist at the University of Padua and Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics.

From Science Magazine • Mar. 27, 2024

Anaxagoras was an Ionian experimentalist who flourished around 450 B.C. and lived in Athens.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan