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contrived
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  • Nor would any of the Achaean women have bewailed him; so dread was the deed he contrived.  (source)
    contrived = arranged
  • By comparison, the chariot costume seems garish, the interview dress too contrived.†  (source)
    contrived = unnatural or arranged
  • McCandless's contrived asceticism and a pseudoliterary stance compound rather than reduce the fault.†  (source)
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Show 10 more with 9 word variations
  • "So you contrived a trick," I said.†  (source)
    contrived = unnatural or arranged
  • The following day, Saturday, my mother and I would contrive to be out of the apartment before he woke from his sweaty, tangled sleep on the sofa.†  (source)
    contrive = arrange
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ive" converts a word into an adjective; though over time, what was originally an adjective often comes to be used as a noun. The adjective pattern means tending to and is seen in words like attractive, impressive, and supportive. Examples of the noun include narrative, alternative, and detective.
  • He is average-sized and prematurely gray, but by some contrivance of carriage and posture, he makes the men who stand before him feel smaller.†  (source)
    contrivance = a device created for a purpose  OR  something arranged (often seeming artificial)
  • I counted to one hundred as I rocked, contriving the patience to get one down in order to take up another.†  (source)
    contriving = arranging -- especially in an unnatural way
  • They caused it to be as a craved treasure of mythology, hung amid tasks and contrivances of danger.†  (source)
  • 'What we thought is not confirmed and what we thought not God contrives.'†  (source)
    contrives = arranges -- especially in an unnatural way
  • "Kahgahgee, my raven!" said he, "You the leader of the robbers, You the plotter of this mischief, The contriver of this outrage, I will keep you, I will hold you, As a hostage for your people, As a pledge of good behavior!"†  (source)
  • Two of a kind, we are, contrivers, both.†  (source)
  • In her absence, and in the absence of anyone like her, he was drawn to many things that, in being beautiful, were her allies— the blue of the stage-set in the floodlights, the grace of a cat as it turned its small lion-like face to question a human movement, a fire that blazed from within the dark of a blacksmith's shop or a baker's and caught his eye as he passed, a single tone arising from a cathedral choir to shock a jaded congregation with its unworldly beauty, the mountaintops as snow was lashed from them by blue winds, the perfect and uncontrived smile of a child.†  (source)
    uncontrived = natural or not arranged
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncontrived means not and reverses the meaning of contrived. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • "The scene," he said, "appears contrived."†  (source)
    contrived = unnatural or arranged
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