The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.]
To compose, recite, or sing extemporaneously, especially in verse; to extemporize; also, to play upon an instrument, or to act, extemporaneously.
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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. To invent, or provide, offhand, or on the spur of the moment; as, he improvised a hammer out of a stone.
Wiktionary
created by improvisation; impromptu; unrehearsed. v
Simple past and past participle of '''improvise.'''
WordNet
adj. done or made using whatever is available; "crossed the river on improvised bridges"; "the survivors used jury-rigged fishing gear"; "the rock served as a makeshift hammer" [syn: jury-rigged, makeshift]
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "improvised".
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.
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.
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.
In moments, soldiers were manhandling the wooden punts out of the stream as fast as they could and piling them up to form an improvised barricade.
The wagoneers disappeared beneath the shelter of their carts, horses secure behind an improvised quickthorn stockade.