Extemporaneous

//əksˌtɛmpɚˈeɪni.əs// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    With inadequate preparation or without advance thought; offhand.

    "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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    with little or no preparation or forethought wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
unpreparedad libad libad libitumad-libad-lib

Example

More examples

"The contestant delivered her extemporaneous speech with such gusto."

Etymology

From Late Latin extemporāneus, from Latin ex tempore (“impromptu”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.