contrive

con·trive | \ kən-ˈtrīv

contrived; contriving

Definition of contrive

1a : devise, plan contrive ways of handling the situation The prisoners contrived a way to escape.

b : to form or create in an artistic or ingenious manner contrived household utensils from stone Native Americans contrived weapons out of stone, wood, and bone.

2 : to bring about by stratagem or with difficulty : manage he contrived to win their support

intransitive verb

: to make schemes

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Examples of contrive in a Sentence

The prisoners contrived a way to escape. He contrived a meeting with the president.

Recent Examples on the Web Now, parents don't have to contrive a scheme to keep their kids from eating too much candy in one day. — Hannah Yasharoff, USA TODAY, "Neil Patrick Harris teases family's Halloween costumes for 2020: 'I've got a clever idea'," 21 Oct. 2020 Over the years since, DC Comics has suffered conniptions in contriving ways to use characters who are tethered to the middle of the last century. — cleveland, "Welcome back, Justice Society: Captain Comics," 29 May 2020 While this all sounds as contrived as friends forcing each other to dance with their crushes in a school gym, that's also what makes the formula work so well for this show and many others. — Whitney Friedlander, CNN, "'The Hills: New Beginnings' cast may be in their 30s, but they might as well still be in high school," 25 June 2019 Father and son have a predictable falling out — predictable, but not as contrived as some of Javed's other emotional crises. — John Defore, Billboard, "'Blinded by the Light': Sundance 2019 Film Review," 28 Jan. 2019 But the longtime checker has an easy way about her that lifts the mood; Lou talks a lot, but it’s not contrived or grating. — Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, "For 22 years, this Dallas-area grocery cashier has been essential to customers’ lives, and never more so than now," 22 Apr. 2020 Author Claude Lévi-Strauss investigated how cultures structure experience around contrived binary oppositions. — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, "What Plant-Based Burgers Can Teach Us About Saving the Planet," 1 Apr. 2020 While the Roth family, renamed the Levins in the HBO show, and many of the characters mentioned in The Plot Against America are based on real people, much of the narrative is entirely contrived. — Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, "The True History Behind ‘The Plot Against America’," 16 Mar. 2020 France was correct, even if the system was contrived. — Jenna Fryer, orlandosentinel.com, "Brian France’s NASCAR playoff vision looking good," 21 Oct. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'contrive.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.