Meaning & use
vicarious experience
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable or uncountableformal
Knowledge or feeling gained by watching or reading about what others do, not by doing it yourself.
Grammar: Can be countable (a vicarious experience) or uncountable (vicarious experience in general).
Patterns
- vicarious experience of something
- gain vicarious experience
- through vicarious experience
Reading travel books gave her a vicarious experience of distant lands.
Children learn many social rules through vicarious experience, watching how adults behave.
He felt a vicarious experience of victory when his brother won the race.
Common combinations
- vicarious experience of
- The novel offers a vicarious experience of life in ancient Rome.
- provide vicarious experience
- Virtual reality can provide vicarious experience of dangerous jobs.
- gain vicarious experience
- Students gain vicarious experience by observing experienced teachers.
- through vicarious experience
- Many people learn about grief through vicarious experience before it happens to them.
Synonyms and how they differ
- secondhand experience
- Secondhand experience is more informal and emphasizes that the experience is not firsthand, while vicarious experience is a technical term in psychology.
- indirect experience
- Indirect experience is broader and can include learning from others' reports, not just observation.
Opposites
Word family
- vicarious adjective
- Experienced through someone else rather than directly.
- vicariously adverb
- In a way that is experienced through another person.
Commonly confused: vicarious experience or vicarious liability?
vicarious experience vs vicarious liability
Vicarious liability is a legal term meaning responsibility for another person's actions, not about experience.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'vicarious experience' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Vicarious experience means experiencing something indirectly, such as through media or another person. The other options describe direct, firsthand experience.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “vicarious experience”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.