extemporaneous

comparative more extemporaneous · superlative most extemporaneous

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

   “Who the devil is there in Ramilly County,” muttered Amory aloud, “who would deliver Verlaine in an extemporaneous tune to a soaking haystack?”

   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

   2 more examples

   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.

   1855, Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC

   The lovely words of a prepared speech, however, cannot erase extemporaneous words and deeds, thousands of them, that have run contrary to those aspirations.

   2017 March 1, The Lead with Jake Tapper, spoken by Jake Tapper, via CNN

   Synonyms: off-the-cuff, extemporal, improvised, extempore, ad lib, extemporal, extemporary, extempore