Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To improvise and deliver extemporaneously.
- intransitive verb To engage in improvisation, as during delivery of a speech.
- noun Words, music, or actions uttered, performed, or carried out extemporaneously.
- adjective Uttered, performed, or carried out spontaneously.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
improvise all or part of a speech or other performance, especially incomedy .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective with little or no preparation or forethought
- adjective said or done without having been planned or written in advance
- verb perform without preparation
- noun remark made spontaneously without prior preparation
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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That Ed Miliband: if only he didn't look a nerd; if only he learnt to ad-lib better at PMQs, Labour would be in better nick.
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The seer's attention skips here and there and often stumbles into an uncensored ad-lib.
First Contact Gabriel Orgrease 2012
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I start each day with an ad-lib full-facial and then I go out nicking cars.
Oogy Wawa Penny Goring 2011
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What I'd love is to find out that his line was a complete ad-lib that Robbins didn't know was coming.
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"His opening ad-lib quieting thunderous applause - 'It's still just me' - should be an instructional moment in public behavior in our celebrity culture."
Morning Bits Jennifer Rubin 2011
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Gary, thinking he was free of the confines of the script, did not really understand what “ad-lib some character lines” meant, and in every take he portrayed a different character altogether, including a six-year-old child.
Roseanne Archy Roseanne Barr 2011
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There was always room to ad-lib lines with the court and each other, but we all knew where we were going, and what was supposed to happen on the field.
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He tried his trademark joking, sputtering an ad-lib about eating too much barbecue but his head bobbed under the strain, and his thin neck muscles stretched and strained in the light.
Grand Heads for America: A Fable of Exceptionalism Steve Anderson 2011
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When Fred refused to change the script to accommodate me, or even to allow me to rewrite it, the director said that I could ad-lib some lines that were not as sexually debasing as what was on the page in a scene with the actor who was portraying my husband, the amazing Mr. Gary Busey.
Roseanne Archy Roseanne Barr 2011
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Nick Reid, the Mississippi-delta repo-man hero of Rick Gavin's first book, "Ranchero," would never be mistaken for the archetypal PI, but he fulfills assignments with all the ad-lib panache of Robert Parker's Spenser or Raymond Chandler's Marlowe.
And Then There Were Ten Tom Nolan 2011
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