as in to devise
to perform, make, or do without preparation
since the award was a complete surprise, I improvised an acceptance speech
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Recent Examples of improvise
That’s when the quarterback improvised.
—
Nick Kosmider, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2025
In the Adams formulation, the true history was about chance, contingency, and unintended consequences, about political leaders who were all improvising on the edge of catastrophe.
—Literary Hub, 28 Oct. 2025
Then the lights go out, and the family has to improvise.
—Sari Hitchins, Parents, 24 Oct. 2025
Writer and director Lloyd optioned the book and shot it with an ensemble of actors who got detailed backstories for their characters and core narrative beats, along with the freedom to improvise dialogue.
—Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 21 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for improvise
Nick Kosmider, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2025
In the Adams formulation, the true history was about chance, contingency, and unintended consequences, about political leaders who were all improvising on the edge of catastrophe.
—Literary Hub, 28 Oct. 2025
Then the lights go out, and the family has to improvise.
—Sari Hitchins, Parents, 24 Oct. 2025
Writer and director Lloyd optioned the book and shot it with an ensemble of actors who got detailed backstories for their characters and core narrative beats, along with the freedom to improvise dialogue.
—Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 21 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for improvise
Recent Examples of Synonyms for improvise
Verb
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Last summer, researchers devised a method to translate internal representations of sentences from one language model to another.—
Ben Brubaker,
Quanta Magazine,
7 Jan. 2026
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Of all the schemes that humans have devised to keep sea lions from gorging on the salmon of the Columbia River basin, none has worked for long.—
Katherine J. Wu,
The Atlantic,
7 Jan. 2026
Verb
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The administration concocts a legal rationale for a foreign policy objective.—
Editorial Board,
Washington Post,
5 Jan. 2026
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Notably, the computers seem to have a knack for concocting bizarre physics experiments — designs that humans wouldn’t think of, which nevertheless work.—
Quanta Magazine,
Quanta Magazine,
17 Dec. 2025
Verb
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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
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Friends said he was talented and could extemporize about anything.—
Jacques Kelly,
Baltimore Sun,
24 Jan. 2023
Cite this Entry
“Improvise.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/improvise. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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