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What is "improvise"

Crossword clues for improvise

improvise
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
improvise
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I improvised a sling for his arm out of a strip of cloth.
▪ I left my lesson plans at home, so I'll have to improvise.
▪ It was difficult to believe that the whole sketch was improvised.
▪ Jazz musicians are good at improvising.
▪ Kids were improvising games with a ball and some string.
▪ Mike improvised a little farewell song at the end of the evening.
▪ Modern jazz players like to take a theme and improvise around it.
▪ Robin Williams likes to improvise his comedy.
▪ They had improvised an alarm, using string and empty cans.
▪ Use these recipes as a guideline, but feel free to improvise!
▪ You can't play jazz unless you can improvise.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ If you've improvised and made a tie yourself, undo it and retie.
▪ Keynes improvised the answers, and changed them as he went along.
▪ Solov had given Holder sixteen bars of music to improvise to, and the dancer grabbed at the opportunity.
▪ The reality of improvising your way through change demands revising specific strategies over time.
▪ Throughout it all, an expanding group of change leaders at McKinsey continued to improvise.
▪ You had to sing; you had to dance; you had to play an instrument; you had to improvise.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Improvise

Improvise \Im`pro*vise"\, v. i. To produce or render extemporaneous compositions, especially in verse or in music, without previous preparation; hence, to do anything offhand.

Improvise

Improvise \Im`pro*vise"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Improvised; p. pr. & vb. n. Improvising.] [F. improviser, it. improvvisare, fr. improvviso unprovided, sudden, extempore, L. improvisus; pref. im- not + provisus foreseen, provided. See Proviso.]

  1. To compose, recite, or sing extemporaneously, especially in verse; to extemporize; also, to play upon an instrument, or to act, extemporaneously.

  2. To bring about, arrange, do, or make, immediately or on short notice, without previous preparation and with no known precedent as a guide.

    Charles attempted to improvise a peace.
    --Motley.

  3. To invent, or provide, offhand, or on the spur of the moment; as, he improvised a hammer out of a stone.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
improvise

1826, back-formation from improvisation, or else from French improviser (17c.), from Italian improvisare "to sing or speak extempore," from improviso, from Latin improvisus "unforeseen, unexpected" (see improvisation). Or possibly a back-formation from improvisation. Related: Improvised; improvising.

Wiktionary
improvise

vb. To make something up or invent it as one goes on; to proceed guided only by imagination, instinct, and guesswork rather than by a careful plan.

Related phrases:
WordNet
improvise

  1. v. perform without preparation; "he extemporized a speech at the wedding" [syn: improvize, ad-lib, extemporize, extemporise]

  2. manage in a makeshift way; do with whatever is at hand; "after the hurricane destroyed our house, we had to improvise for weeks" [syn: extemporize]

Wikipedia
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "improvise".

He smiled indulgently when her mother took her to an improvised meeting center in a shabby house near the Kebar where there was endless talk of Adonai and of prophets and wishful prophecies of future deliverance of the Hebrews from their bondage in Babylon.

So before the Anglo could get his own gun muzzle over the top edge of his improvised barricade, Longarm swung the muzzle of the Big Fifty up to fire a shot heard all across Puerto Periasco.

The other warrior kept running headlong, fleeing without a backward glance, and Nom Anor soon discovered what the warrior fled from: a limping, snarling, shouting mob, bearing a variety of improvised weapons, from spade rays to malledillos to writhing wild amphistaffs as much a danger to their wielder as to an enemy, which descended upon the hamstrung warrior to beat and chop him to death with savage triumph.

Before Salma could orient herself and remember why she had a child in her lap, Rupoti Apa lifted the little girl out of her improvised cradle.

He moved abruptly to haul Baya away from the fire, where she was setting an improvised torch alight.

The boys have built a partition of beaverboard and set up their cots in this improvised room.

They had hastily arranged their meager defenses in a circle, surrounding their scant supplies and improvising the use of the Boeotian engines as they had seen the troops practicing.

The next morning, after her brownfields testimony, Whitman improvised her final, creative step, a sort of icing on this confection.

There was not even a garrison to defend Calicut, and one had to be improvised when the first horde of wounded and panic-stricken Hindus came stampeding for protection.

While most of the Wraiths had been away on Mon Remonda, Kell and mechanic Cubber Daine had used laser cutters to open a large portion of the wall facing the Trench, giving it the aspect of a large viewport minus transparisteel, and had improvised additional chairs and tables out there.

She found that, after the Guiser had acted out his mock decapitation, the Sons danced again and the Betty and Hobby-Horse improvised.

Conan mounted guard at the door, while Dessa pulled blankets off the bed to improvise garb for everyone.

That music rose in a tangled tracery: arabesques of order competing fugally with the improvised discords of the party downstairs, which peaked sometimes in cusps and ogees of noise.

Then he told her a couple of his gopher stories and silently thanked Blanche for his handreading technique as he improvised a character analysis.

But the current of the Nile would tend to push them away from the land, and according to the weather-glass that van Hoek had improvised from a glass tube and a flask of quicksilver, the skies would be clear for at least another day.