as in to improvise
to perform, make, or do without preparation a good talk show host has to be able to extemporize the interviews when things don't go as planned

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of extemporize The future, instead, seems to belong to the teams and coaches who are willing to be a little more flexible and see their role as providing a platform on which their players might extemporize. Rory Smith, New York Times, 3 Mar. 2023 Friends said he was talented and could extemporize about anything. Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun, 24 Jan. 2023 Feel free to extemporize, enthuse and connect with people, rather than overwork the data. Palena Neale, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2021 In public appearances, Emanuel likes to extemporize, cajole, and find a connection. Connie Bruck, The New Yorker, 19 Apr. 2021 The Trump that appeared in the East Room of the White House to honor the singers was not the same figure who likes to crack jokes and extemporize freely when rubbing shoulders with superstars. Rob Crilly, Washington Examiner, 15 Jan. 2021 That meant players were able to extemporize, to take chances without being accused of departing too far from the team playbook. San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Sep. 2019 And they are exacerbated by Mr. Trump’s tendency to extemporize and the North Koreans’ long track record of duplicitous negotiation. Jonathan Cheng, WSJ, 9 Mar. 2018 Each presenter now has the freedom to extemporize on the warning — a nonnegotiable requirement of the program’s opening — but not by much. Rory Smith, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for extemporize
Verb
  • Will downtown buildings in L.A. illuminate improvised lightning bolts, as happened in downtown San Diego?
    Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 July 2025
  • Frontman Martin then improvises a brief song after they are captured on the big screen.
    EW.com, EW.com, 19 July 2025
Verb
  • This ignores a fundamental problem of innovation and inventiveness, which is that many of the innovative geniuses who devised transformative inventions failed to profit financially from their own ingenuity while more aggressive, entrepreneurial bystanders claimed credit and profit.
    Preston Fore, Fortune, 10 July 2025
  • The breath-freshener smell that Marks had devised was a combination of laurel leaves—peculiar to the modern sensibility, but not off-putting—and musk.
    Margaret Talbot, New Yorker, 10 July 2025
Verb
  • Free to experiment, distillers are concocting playful new expressions that summon the sea to your glass.
    Camille Berry, Vogue, 15 July 2025
  • It’s well established that the Trump-Russia hoax was concocted to harm Trump, but Ratcliffe’s move is a prosecutorial dead end.
    Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 13 July 2025

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“Extemporize.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/extemporize. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.

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