ex·tem·po·rize

(ĭk-stĕm′pə-rīz′)

v. ex·tem·po·rized, ex·tem·po·riz·ing, ex·tem·po·riz·es

v.tr.

To do or perform (something) without prior preparation or practice: extemporized an acceptance speech.

v.intr.

To perform an act or utter something in an impromptu manner; improvise: "[When] the house lights dimmed, she could no longer read what she had written and was forced to extemporize" (Dale Peterson).

[From extempore.]

ex·tem′po·ri·za′tion (-pər-ĭ-zā′shən) n.

ex·tem′po·riz′er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in periodicals archive

In 1925, the same year as Gatsby's publication, Edmund Wilson wrote that "Fitzgerald is a dazzling extemporizer but his stories have a way of petering out: He seems never to have planned them thoroughly or to have thought them out from the beginning" (82-3).

Wealth and women: the expatriate performance of affluence

But when the Great Extemporizer delivered the speech, he left out the second half of the line.

Lip service

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