extemporize
/ɪkˈstɛmpərʌɪz
/ /ɛkˈstɛmpərʌɪz/(also extemporise)
verb [no object]
Compose or perform something such as music or a speech without preparation; improvise: he extemporized at the piano [with object]: she was extemporizing touching melodies
Synonyms
improvise, ad lib, play it by ear, think on one's feet, throw/cobble something together, make it up as one goes along, take it as it comes
informal busk it, wing it, do something off the cuff, do something off the top of one's head, do something on the spur of the moment
Derivatives
extemporization
/ /ɛkstɛmpərʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n / noun ...- At the premiere Handel gave an organ extemporisation on the fugal subject taken up by the choir.
- These tunes go back to the very heart of extemporisation; the very root of Jazz itself.
- Dickens, writing serially to the month as he did, clearly left much to his powers of extemporization.