dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

impromptu
in a sentence

show 156 more with this conextual meaning
  • An impromptu, a proletarian mode.†   (source)
  • Not that anything exciting happened, for instance an impromptu game of spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven—two possibilities for which us girls had prepared for with gum and lip gloss.†   (source)
  • One Saturday morning during my junior year of high school, I showed up at the University of California at Irvine to compete in an impromptu speech contest sponsored by the Alliance Francaise, a French language school.†   (source)
  • Naturally, this has led to impromptu romances and heartfelt debates on the merits of Pushkin over Petrarch.†   (source)
  • My Lord, before I return to Paris, there is one final matter I'd like to discuss—your impromptu flight to London.†   (source)
  • Then, impromptu, he reached out and stroked the nose of Cinnamon, who was perched on Stargirl's shoulder.†   (source)
  • She opened her mouth to continue but realized that there was another voice speaking, just across the hallway, and that reporters were defecting from her impromptu press conference to hear Jordan McAfee instead.†   (source)
  • Those elements of the celebration that allow the impromptu were the responsibility of Mr. Merrill, who was brief and charming—his nervousness was manifest, as usual, only by his slight stutter.†   (source)
  • THAT EVENINGS I FORCE MYSELF INTO A DRESS TO ATTEND an impromptu ball with Thomas on my arm.†   (source)
  • It had been a dizzying series of events—arrested at gunpoint in a home he owned, brought to an impromptu military base built inside a bus station, accused of terrorism, and locked in an outdoor cage.†   (source)
  • The first impromptu memorial in the cornfield opened in my father the need for more.†   (source)
  • Despite Mr. Barbour's impromptu lessons from the flag chart in his study, I had not found much to engage me in the topic of sailing, either.†   (source)
  • It wasn't easy to explain why on earth Sophia Hennerson and I would decide on an impromptu swim in the ocean—in our clothes, no less—just after a big family dinner, even harder to explain why I came home pale and shaking, and I could tell my aunt didn't buy it.†   (source)
  • After dinner and before lights-out every night, Simon and I had been bringing our cellos outside to hold impromptu concerts in the long twilight.†   (source)
  • I sat in bed with my laptop by my side, enjoying the online reviews of my impromptu interview.†   (source)
  • It was an impromptu walkout following my injury.†   (source)
  • I spent the entire day at the crash site, lingering at the impromptu memorial that had risen there.†   (source)
  • In one picture, which seems like the most recent but still looks a few years dated, his dad has his arms around the two boys, and he's squeezing them together for an impromptu photo.†   (source)
  • The guards exchanged smiles and rolled their eyes while the tinker gave an impromptu sermon on the subject of temperance.†   (source)
  • As I write this, I think fondly of our yearly ritual of planting tomatoes in the garden, your morning visits to my small quarters for tea and pleasantry, our impromptu trading of Farsi and English lessons.†   (source)
  • Root played impromptu recitals on a rented piano.†   (source)
  • He gave an impromptu speech about the unquenchable African thirst for liberty.†   (source)
  • IN MARIN THERE WERE almost no natives, these people having died out or been exterminated long ago, and one would see them only occasionally, at impromptu trading posts—or perhaps more often, but wrapped in clothes and guises and behaviors indistinguishable from anyone else.†   (source)
  • I leaned against the passenger door, waiting for Charlie to drag himself away from the impromptu party.†   (source)
  • "Eliza!" they yelled, and Eliza Drake did an impromptu handspring, showing off.†   (source)
  • Each of the creepy guys seems to have a desk of his own, some of them loiter near their desks, the rest of them are doing a lot of hall-jogging and impromptu conferencing at other creepy guys' desks.†   (source)
  • But in my opinion, that nearly weeklong vigil carried out in an entirely impromptu manner by the people of Texas says a huge amount about them, their compassion, their generosity, and their love for their stricken neighbors.†   (source)
  • At the far end of the field, he had set up an impromptu hospital where half a dozen campers lay injured on stretchers.†   (source)
  • Outside Goetz's apartment building, on the evening of the verdict, there was a raucous, impromptu street party.†   (source)
  • In the process of doing that each day, for the first time I had a chance to give an impromptu talk to a randomly gathered group of people.†   (source)
  • I'm good at impromptu.†   (source)
  • Last year on her birthday an impromptu party started in the streets in her honor and lasted for three days.†   (source)
  • A dozen or so students were congregated on the lawn, playing another impromptu game of Frisbee.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dubonnet and a knot of other miners were gathered in an impromptu union meeting by the lamp house.†   (source)
  • I could then have pretended to notice him for the first time and have engaged him in conversation in an impromptu manner.†   (source)
  • Adam had always loved it when she sang to him, so she did just that, performing an impromptu solo of "Proud to Be an American."†   (source)
  • It was ninety minutes before the shouting died away and the eyes dried, and then there was an impromptu feast.†   (source)
  • As they had, I moved in time with the music, making little impromptu turns and dance moves.†   (source)
  • She haltingly recalls what it was like taking Zayd and Bear out to dinner on an impromptu "business trip" through Providence three weeks earlier.†   (source)
  • He felt so good he even danced an impromptu jig.†   (source)
  • She was leaning on Charlie Conroy's arm, and when she departed to hide Johnnie safely away in the depths of their impromptu kitchen, it left the two men alone together.†   (source)
  • Kicking up his heels, Gedric danced an impromptu jig.†   (source)
  • And so an impromptu parade is thrown together, after which the animals are led to the menagerie and the candy butchers and other concessionaires set up their wares.†   (source)
  • He would whisper impromptu fairy tales about her, or gibberish, words he repeated monotonously, words soothing or comical, which turned into vague visions lulling her through the first dreams of the night.†   (source)
  • All that summer there had been signs of unrest, still rather disorganized: impromptu roadblocks made of burning tires, peasants demonstrating in Mirebalais.†   (source)
  • Soon all of them had settled down in their impromptu campsite.†   (source)
  • Pippa makes a coughing noise in her throat before dissolving into giggles and I can see this is an impromptu request, an extra bit of daring on Felicity's part.†   (source)
  • About a week before I was to report, Larry and I met a small group of friends at Joe's Bar on Sixth Street in the East Village, for an impromptu going-away.†   (source)
  • He had not been forewarned of this impromptu settlement conference, and he certainly had no clue that his old pal was planning to throw some numbers on the table.†   (source)
  • Sinatra has visited the Kennedys' family estate at Hyannis Port and once startled guests by performing an impromptu concert at the living room piano.†   (source)
  • Indeed, in one corner some of the young Tooks and Brandybucks, supposing Uncle Bilbo to have finished (since he had plainly said all that was necessary), now got up an impromptu orchestra, and began a merry dance-tune.†   (source)
  • Finding some of the local residents sadly ignorant of the subject, he gave them an impromptu lecture.†   (source)
  • Once she reached out to pull the collar of his shirt from under the neck of Conrad's black pullover, and he sat, not moving under her touch, but drinking in every ounce of her attention, knowing that, mysteriously, he had done something right tonight, maybe just walking in the door and being glad to see them, or maybe it was his description of the impromptu picnic on the school lawn in thirty-degree weather, to celebrate the coming of spring.†   (source)
  • It was my father who finally cut the reporters off at one impromptu press conference.†   (source)
  • Mavis, eyes shining, was onstage, screeching out an impromptu number that had the dance floor rocking.†   (source)
  • And after staying up at all-night jirgas with village elders and weighing in on proposals for new projects, or showing a classroom full of excited eight-year-old girls how to use the first pencil-sharpener anyone has ever cared to give them, or teaching an impromptu class on English slang to a roomful of gravely respectful students, it is impossible to remain simply a reporter.†   (source)
  • They had all ensconced themselves in the ship's lounge to sip drinks and hold an impromptu conference with the more than three dozen journalists from newspapers across the nation who were also on board.†   (source)
  • It was as if we had come upon some impromptu camping trip for an accounting firm, or a coven of big-city lawyers or bankers.†   (source)
  • The next hour becomes an impromptu self-defense demonstration.†   (source)
  • Everywhere he went, what the staffers called a "mini-rally" seemed to develop, impromptu phalanges of citizens and reporters gathering about him on three sides, the fourth always kept open and clear for what the staffers called the "visuals."†   (source)
  • And, of course, if Phil or Jase runs the nets and catches a big mess of catfish, all work stops at the warehouse while everyone heads down to Phil and Kay's for an impromptu fish fry.†   (source)
  • We were, but she said she didn't want to intrude on our impromptu reunion.†   (source)
  • Shadrach, the runaway slave, was outside the courthouse before the police officers, who were guarding him, were aware that they had just watched an impromptu and wonderfully effective rescue party at work.†   (source)
  • He had gone to fetch Eva from her flute lesson—a haphazard, sometimes quite sudden and impromptu affair (depending on daily pressures) held in a gutted basement a dozen blocks away.†   (source)
  • I never resisted it when, in almost every story I ever wrote, some parade or procession, impromptu or ceremonious, comic or mocking or funereal, has risen up to mark some stage of the story's unfolding.†   (source)
  • Stopping and going inside a building were taken as an invitation to an impromptu meeting, which in fact began at once.†   (source)
  • Just before the arrival of the bus, we had an impromptu geography lesson.†   (source)
  • With rugged, homely but earnest eloquence, he begged his weary colleagues in an impromptu plea not to plunge the nation into new agitations over the slavery issue.†   (source)
  • With a multitude of former POWs, he began a transcontinental rail journey that became a nonstop party, including eight impromptu weddings.   (source)
    impromptu = done without advance planning or preparation
  • An impromptu circus, fox and geese, and an amicable game of croquet finished the afternoon.   (source)
    impromptu = done without advance preparation
  • Want of breath brought the impromptu ball to a close, and then people began to go.   (source)
  • But the Emperor's friend covered himself with glory, for he danced everything, whether he knew it or not, and introduced impromptu pirouettes when the figures bewildered him.   (source)
  • This isn't impromptu: she must have been making a plan.†   (source)
  • I returned the favor by giving an impromptu lesson in psychology, probability, and manual dexterity.†   (source)
  • He has an idea, impromptu and born of desperation, but nevertheless it may work.†   (source)
  • An arrangement was made to build an impromptu prison on high ground in New Orleans.†   (source)
  • Even though I was the youngest contestant in the impromptu speech contest, I placed first.†   (source)
  • Marion and his wife were putting on an impromptu string-puppet show.†   (source)
  • He moved four times among the impromptu, open-air camps.†   (source)
  • Clearly, this wasn't an impromptu event, something decided at the last minute.†   (source)
  • It's impromptu," Dexter told him, tugging at his collar again.†   (source)
  • She giggled wildly and did an impromptu dance turn.†   (source)
  • Where's Señor Lorca?" asked Max, ignoring the prospect of an impromptu class.†   (source)
  • The three men settled in to an impromptu meeting.†   (source)
  • When I raised my eyebrows, she added, "Impromptu Hot-Dog Party."†   (source)
  • That impromptu midnight press conference at Dallas police headquarters was surreal.†   (source)
  • Would we run into another impromptu police roadblock, as we had a few days ago?†   (source)
  • Rudolph had created the impromptu escape plan.†   (source)
  • Cindy Lou broke off into an impromptu rendition of "Over the Rainbow."†   (source)
  • And there and then he delivered a whole impromptu lecture, astonished that he could do it.†   (source)
  • "Yeah, scarecrow first," the class agreed, acting out the chorus in this impromptu drama.†   (source)
  • After exhausting the list they knew, Tim gave a brief, impromptu concert.†   (source)
  • At first he enjoyed the rushed impromptu visits, the secrecy, the sound of Velcro ripped open in haste, the slow tumbling onto the floor; though he figured out pretty soon that he was an extra for these lovers — not to be taken seriously, but instead to be treasured like some child's free gift dug out of a box of cereal, colourful and delightful but useless: the joker among the twos and threes they'd been dealt in their real lives.†   (source)
  • When I met Gottman, he had just published his most ambitious book, a dense five-hundred-page treatise called The Mathematics of Divorce, and he attempted to give me a sense of his argument, scribbling equations and impromptu graphs on a paper napkin until my head began to swim.†   (source)
  • Holmes checked newspaper advertisements for a rental flat far enough from his building to make impromptu visits unlikely.†   (source)
  • A new jacket and a well-groomed beard ... A discussion after dinner continued from earlier in the day ... And a Zelinsky who, having dragged everyone to his favorite little nightspot, steers an impressionable young poet to one end of the table and a Mishka to the other.... As Mishka continued with his description of the previous evening, the irony of the situation did not escape the Count: that during all those years they had lived above the cobbler's, it was Mishka who had stayed put and the Count who, having apologized that he couldn't join his friend for dinner, had returned hours later with tales of lively toasts and tete-d-tetes and impromptu outings to candlelit cafés.†   (source)
  • When you're sitting in Miami, waiting for the final game of the entire football season, with nothing to do but sit around and check out Thursday-afternoon television while trying not to dwell on the game that night I decided to have an impromptu Bible study and called as many guys as would fit into our room, including Pastor Lindsey (Lindsey Seals), the Ocala minister who served as our team chaplain.†   (source)
  • Some families had no choice but to bury their dead in a courtyard or at the sheltered margin of a road, it being impossible to reach a proper graveyard, and so impromptu burial grounds grew up, one extinguished body attracting others, in much the same way that the arrival of one squatter on a disused patch of government land can give rise to an entire slum.†   (source)
  • Even condemned men were allowed to choose a last meal, a topic of discussion which Hobie (indefatigable cook, joyous eater) had more than once introduced at the end of the evening over Armagnac while he was scrambling around for empty snuffboxes and extra saucers to serve as impromptu ashtrays for his guests: for him it was a metaphysical question, best considered on a full stomach after all the desserts were cleared and the final plate of jasmine caramels was being passed, because — really looking at the end of it, at the end of the night, closing your eyes and waving goodbye to Earth—what would you actually choose?†   (source)
  • I hesitate for a split second, long enough to place the tune—Frank Sinatra, "New York, New York"—and say a prayer of thanks that the Pugs aren't witness to my mom's impromptu performance.†   (source)
  • While driving through Pennsylvania he had simply happened upon a beautiful lake,pulled over, and taken an impromptu fishing vacation in perfect serenity.†   (source)
  • The rebel infantry topple the wagons that have made it across the double bridges, using them as an impromptu breastworks, hiding behind a spoked wheel or a tilted axle.†   (source)
  • Within minutes, the six classmates and Mr. McDaniels were huddled downstairs and enjoying an impromptu party fueled by Connor's bags of Bedford Bros.†   (source)
  • But that afternoon, on the impromptu hike, she held me tight and wouldn't let me go and at some point I began not just to relent but to kiss her back, and with a sudden, spurring ebullience that caught us both off guard.†   (source)
  • Home was kind of weird as well, as my mom had gotten some research grant and was working all the time, and when she wasn't, her graduate assistants were always showing up for impromptu dinners and cocktail hours.†   (source)
  • They rub shoulders in taverns, restaurants, cathouses, and the impromptu glow of blazing streetside bonfires.†   (source)
  • They march to his house down the middle of the street, impromptu parades of them, husbands and wives and crying toddlers on shoulders, angry white people and brown people and black people, and now even some yellow, a few faces I think I recognize from past rallies and events, yelling together for his ouster in the simple rhyme of the picket: Hey, ho, Kwang must go!†   (source)
  • That week the entire population of the Camp was summoned into the main hallway for an impromptu meeting with the staff—a bunch of white men looking too bored to smirk.†   (source)
  • This impromptu dinner is the sort of get-together the First Lady enjoyed so often before baby Patrick's death.†   (source)
  • Bujumbura had become a city of refugee cows, pastured in impromptu United Nations camps for the internally displaced, and also lowing on streetcorners, trudging along on sidewalks, herded into narrow vacant lots behind gas stations.†   (source)
  • Along the way, another impromptu victory parade on Pennsylvania Avenue slows their progress and makes them even later for the show.†   (source)
  • As Long-street directs his men to strengthen their impromptu defenses in Rice's Station, Lee can only wonder how long it will take the rest of his army and its wagon train to catch up.†   (source)
  • As the snow continued to fall on the stranded motorists and the impromptu bonfires lining the streets of Washington, the young couple sat together in early-morning conversation.†   (source)
  • Grant has slept so many nights in impromptu battlefield lodgings procured on the fly by his staff that it never crossed his mind to send a telegram asking for a room.†   (source)
  • After years of battle, hardship, strategizing, and sleeping in one impromptu lodging after another, the two great warriors and the thousands of men in their armies can now go home.†   (source)
  • Punch was being served from the MacLain punch bowl, one of Miss Snowdie's gifts from her husband-served impromptu by Miss Billy Texas Spights, who sprang for the ladle, and they drank it out of the twenty-four MacLain cups and the twelve Loomis.†   (source)
  • When Prophet said that he had seen it all and that both were wrong, I nodded my head sagaciously, delivered an impromptu sermon on the need for honesty, and left them to continue the game in peace.†   (source)
  • In a few days, the envelopes filled one whole side of the impromptu shrine.†   (source)
  • It broke out of the depths of his being, and then had to be dealt with, impromptu and fast.†   (source)
  • He had been talking with an impromptu fluency which, though not insincere, was chiefly designed to create and control an atmosphere.†   (source)
  • which earlier generations were guided by the symbols and spiritual exercises of their mythological and religious inheritance, we today (in so far as we are unbelievers, or, if believers, in so far as our inherited beliefs fail to represent the real problems of contemporary life) must face alone, or, at best, with only tentative, impromptu, and not often very effective guidance.†   (source)
  • 'If Mrs. Pontellier should call upon you, play for her that Impromptu of Chopin's, my favorite.†   (source)
  • Then an impromptu square dance, the men devising original figures.†   (source)
  • Show me the letter and play for me the Impromptu.†   (source)
  • Edna did not know when the Impromptu began or ended.†   (source)
  • This state of things, of course, gave rise to many impromptu vigilance committees.†   (source)
  • But the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for.†   (source)
  • I took some brandy and water, and then went up past my impromptu bag—he was lying quite still—to the room containing the old clothes.†   (source)
  • So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence—and we crept on, towards Kurtz.†   (source)
  • It will be half dark, and empty, so that from the beginning the public may have the impression of an impromptu performance.†   (source)
  • As the delegates arrived, not in taxicabs but in the family automobile driven by the oldest son or by Cousin Fred, they formed impromptu processions through the station waiting-room.†   (source)
  • Both Behrens and Joachim looked at him to see if he was not ashamed of himself for these impromptu babblings.†   (source)
  • A new union was the result of this outburst, but the impromptu strike went to pieces in three days, owing to the rush of new labor.†   (source)
  • It was a mere digression, an instructive example to sensitize them to the basics of life, an impromptu fantasy, which he then dropped to turn his official and emphatic emotional engagement back to the immediate demands of the late hour's festive abandon.†   (source)
  • Besides outlining the progress of Torrensing real estate titles, Mr. Babbitt spoke in part as follows: "'In rising to address you, with my impromptu speech carefully tucked into my vest pocket, I am reminded of the story of the two Irishmen, Mike and Pat, who were riding on the Pullman.†   (source)
  • They enjoyed the classic gifts under his majestic direction: coffee with cream and country breads, or rich cheeses and fragrant Alpine butter, which also tasted marvelous with hot, roasted chestnuts, all washed down by as much Veltliner red as the heart desired; and Peeperkorn would accompany these impromptu meals with grand tattered phrases, or he might demand a tale from Anton Karlovitch Ferge, the good-natured martyr to whom all higher things were utterly foreign, but who knew some very down-to-earth details about the manufacture of Russian galoshes—sulfur and other ingredients were added to raw rubber, and the finished boots were then lacquere†   (source)
  • In the most ticklish situation he had managed— with good grace and quite impromptu—a vindication of drink; he had, moreover, just in passing, brought the conversation around to "civilization," of which, to be sure, little was evident in Mynheer Peeperkorn's primitive, menacing pose; and finally, by asking his question, had relaxed that grandiose pose—it would have been quite inappropriate to respond with a raised, clenched fist.†   (source)
  • Gradually and imperceptibly the interlude melted into the soft opening minor chords of the Chopin Impromptu.†   (source)
  • Mademoiselle had glided from the Chopin into the quivering love notes of Isolde's song, and back again to the Impromptu with its soulful and poignant longing.†   (source)
  • Then play the Impromptu for me.†   (source)
  • Play the Impromptu.†   (source)
  • He was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous bundle on the high stool, with his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite cornice, and his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might, impromptu syllables to a tune of Arne's which had hit his fancy.†   (source)
  • Scenes, characters, and situations were taken at random, impromptu, and the plot and the moral came of itself as it were, with no plan on the part of the story-teller.†   (source)
  • Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land without knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu, when he had not thought of a question beforehand.†   (source)
  • You keep putting me out, but we...you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch, to find something to sing and get money, something Kolya can dance to....For, as you can fancy, our performance is all impromptu....We must talk it over and rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky, where there are far more people of good society, and we shall be noticed at once.†   (source)
  • 'So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or an assignation, or a penitent remonstrance, or an impromptu wrestle with my friend Bounderby in the Lancashire manner — which would seem as likely as anything else in the present state of affairs — I'll dine,' said Mr. James Harthouse.†   (source)
  • Taking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his friend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object of their visit.†   (source)
  • He had hardly returned from the marquee with the prize in his hand, when it began to be understood that Wiry Ben proposed to amuse the company, before the gentry went to dinner, with an impromptu and gratuitous performance—namely, a hornpipe, the main idea of which was doubtless borrowed; but this was to be developed by the dancer in so peculiar and complex a manner that no one could deny him the praise of originality.†   (source)
  • Excellent men, who had been forced all their lives to spell on an impromptu-phonetic system, and having carried on a successful business in spite of this disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their sons a better start in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take their chance as to the conscience and the competence of the schoolmaster whose circular fell in their way, and appeared to promise so much more than they would ever have thought of asking for, including the return of linen, fork, and spoon.†   (source)
  • I stepped back to survey the results of my impromptu field dressing, and backed straight into the big man, who had come in quietly to watch.†   (source)
  • Confronted with the results of that impromptu raid, Dougal had been mildly annoyed—not with the fact of the raid, but only concerned that the cattle would slow our progress.†   (source)
  • Enough O deed impromptu and secret,
    Enough O gliding present—enough O summ'd-up past.†   (source)
  • They swarmed across the mountains and down the great rivers, wrestling with the naked wilderness and setting up a casual, impromptu sort of civilization where the Indian still menaced.†   (source)
  • IMPROMPTU In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O'Molloy: —Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed.†   (source)
  • To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment's hesitation, saying straight off: —To sweep the floor in the morning.†   (source)
  • through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,
    Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,
    Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,
    We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,
    'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,
    Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and
    poems ever made,
    Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,
    And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and
    clouds of smoke,
    By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some
    in the pews lai†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)