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extemporaneous
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Etymology
From Late Latin extemporāneus, from Latin ex tempore (“impromptu”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
extemporaneous (comparative more extemporaneous, superlative most extemporaneous)
- With inadequate preparation or without advance thought; offhand.
- Synonyms: off-the-cuff, (archaic) extemporal, improvised; see also Thesaurus:impromptu
- 1855, Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC:
- My speeches in Great Britain were wholly extemporaneous, and I may not always have been so guarded in my expressions, as I otherwise should have been. I was ten years younger then than now, and only seven years from slavery.
- 1920 April, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “Young Irony”, in This Side of Paradise, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book II (The Education of a Personage), page 241:
- “Who the devil is there in Ramilly County,” muttered Amory aloud, “who would deliver Verlaine in an extemporaneous tune to a soaking haystack?”
- 2017 March 1, The Lead with Jake Tapper, spoken by Jake Tapper, via CNN:
- The lovely words of a prepared speech, however, cannot erase extemporaneous words and deeds, thousands of them, that have run contrary to those aspirations.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
without preparation
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