What does "improvisation" mean?

The act or art of composing and making music, poetry, and the like, extemporaneously

What is a synonym for "improvisation"?

Common synonyms include: extemporization, action, ad hoc measure, ad lib, ad-libbing, answer.

Pronounced //ɪmpɹəvaɪˈzeɪʃən//.

//ɪmpɹəvaɪˈzeɪʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
The act or art of composing and making music, poetry, and the like, extemporaneously countable, uncountable
"He played a quick improvisation on the keyboard."
2
a performance given extempore without planning or preparation wordnet
3
That which is improvised; an impromptu. countable, uncountable
4
an unplanned expedient wordnet
5
Musical technique, characteristic of blues music. countable, uncountable

Show 2 more definitions

6
a creation spoken or written or composed extemporaneously (without prior preparation) wordnet
7
The act of improvising, acting or going about something without planning ahead countable, uncountable
"The Ivorian is a player with such a liking for improvisation it does not usually look like he has any more idea than anyone else what he is going to do next, so it was an interesting choice."

"Improvisation is an essential part of jazz. It also used to be important in classical music, but this is not true nowadays."

From French improvisation. Morphologically improvise + -ation.

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