WORD OF DAY: EXTEMPORISE
verb | ik-STEM-puh-ryze
What It Means
To extemporise means to do something extemporaneously—in other words, to improvise.
// A good talk show host must be able to extemporise when interviews don’t go as planned.
Examples of EXTEMPORISE
“The president was fast on his feet. Sensing an opportunity to extemporise, he looked around the chamber, pleased.” — Robin Abcarian, The Los Angeles Times, 12 Feb. 2023
Did You Know?
Let’s dive into the essence of extemporise by exploring its origins. (We’ll try not to bore you with too many extraneous details.) To extemporise is to say or do something off-the-cuff; extemporise was coined by adding the suffix -ize to the Latin phrase ex tempore, meaning “on impulse” or “on the spur of the moment.” (Incidentally, ex tempore was also borrowed wholesale into English with the meaning “in an extemporaneous manner.”) Other descendants of ex tempore include the now rare extemporal and extemporary—both synonyms of extemporaneous—and as you have no doubt guessed by now, extemporaneous itself.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
