单词 | improvise |
释义 | improvise (once / 1124 pages) v To improvise means to make something up on the spot, or figure it out as you go. "Our boss decided to improvise his speech at our company meeting and when he started going off-topic, everyone could tell he hadn't prepared in advance." Improvise comes from the Latin word improvisus, meaning "unforeseen, unexpected." Think about when something unexpected happens to you — you have no choice but to react in the moment, or improvise. Another meaning for improvise refers to acting onstage without a script. When actors improvise scenes for an audience, they create funny situations as they go, without having anything pre-planned. The Second City theater in Chicago made this type of comedy famous, with many well-known alumni like Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert. WORD FAMILYimprovise: improvisation, improvised, improvises, improvising+/improvisation: improvisations USAGE EXAMPLESAnd even George Washington, so renowned for his composure, quivered during his address to the Senate after nervously improvising in his first inauguration. Wall Street Journal(Jan 02, 2017) We now live in a world of half-hearted Curb imitators, all labouring under the delusion that Curb was nothing but floridly improvised swearwords. The Guardian(Dec 31, 2016) In another scene, he offers some dead-on lines, a number of them improvised, at a dinner-table conversation about menstruation. Los Angeles Times(Dec 26, 2016) 1v manage in a makeshift way; do with whatever is at hand after the hurricane destroyed our house, we had to improvise for weeks Syn|Hyper extemporize contend, cope, deal, get by, grapple, make do, make out, manage come to terms with 2v perform without preparation Syn|Hyper ad-lib, extemporise, extemporize, improvize do, execute, perform carry out or perform an action |
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