extemporize

English

Alternative forms

extemporise (chiefly Commonwealth)

Etymology

Etymology tree

Latin ex tempore

English extempore

Proto-Indo-European *-id-

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti

Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō

Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor.

Late Latin -izōder.

Middle French -iserbor.

Middle English -isen

English -ize

English extemporize

From extempore + -ize.

Verb

extemporize (third-person singular simple present extemporizes, present participle extemporizing, simple past and past participle extemporized)

(intransitive) To perform or speak without prior planning or thought; to act in an impromptu manner; to improvise.
- 1881, George MacDonald, chapter 35, in Mary Marston:
  "Will you please tell me whose music you have been playing?" . . .
  "It's nobody's, miss."
  "Do you mean you have been extemporizing all this time?"
- 2009 March 5, Peter Baker, “The (very) scripted president”, in New York Times, retrieved 8 November 2011:
  But while some of his predecessors liked to extemporize, Obama prefers the message to be just so.
(transitive) To adapt, improvise, or devise action or speech in an impromptu or spontaneous manner.
- 1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 10, in The Marble Faun:
  As the music came fresher on their ears, they danced to its cadence, extemporizing new steps and attitudes.
- 1879, Samuel Butler, chapter 5, in Evolution, Old & New:
  The small jelly-speck, which we call the amoeba, has no organs save what it can extemporize as occasion arises.
- 1906, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts, Part Second, Act Third:
  The wine runs into pitchers, washing-basins, shards, chamber- vessels, and other extemporized receptacles.
- 2003 August 25, Emily Eakin, “How King Shaped The Dream”, in New York Times, retrieved 8 November 2011:
  His most famous words — "I have a dream" — were extemporized.
- 2026 April 2, Jill Bearup, 9:54 from the start, in Is The New York Times Punking Us?‎^[1], via YouTube:
  The evidence of my eyes does not lead me to the conclusion that Woody Brown is communicating via a letter board. It leads me to the conclusion that he is randomly tapping the board and that his mother is extemporizing, whether consciously or not.

Synonyms

(intransitive): improvise, think on one's feet
(transitive): devise, improvise

Derived terms

extemporizer

Related terms

Translations

to act, particularly to perform or speak, without prior planning or thought

Bulgarian: импровизирам (bg) (improviziram)
German: extemporieren (de)
Greek: αυτοσχεδιάζω (el) (aftoschediázo)
Italian: parlare a braccio (it), improvvisare (it)
Persian: سرهم‌بندی کردن (sar-ham-bandi kardan), بالبداهه گفتن (belbedâhe goftan)
Polish: improwizować (pl) impf, zaimprowizować (pl) pf
Russian: импровизи́ровать (ru) n (improvizírovatʹ)
Slovak: improvizovať