• ad-lib •
Pronunciation: æd-lib • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective, adverb, verb, noun
Meaning: 1. (Adjective, adverb) Impromptu, spontaneous, as one pleases without preparation. 2. (Verb) To speak or otherwise present spontaneously, without preparation. 3. (Noun) Anything spoken or played spontaneously.
Notes: Here is a word that may be used as all four major parts of speech. It may be used as an adverb without modification, as 'to sing ad-lib', as a verb similarly, as 'to ad-lib a speech', as an adjective, as 'an ad-lib piano accompaniment', and as a noun, as 'after several ad-libs'. By the way, we are free to omit the hyphen and spell it ad lib.
In Play: Ad-lib usually applies to speech: "Lance Sterling smoothly adds ad-lib lines on stage when he forgets his own." This word applies to music, too: "A good jazz musician can ad-lib a fine riff for any tune."
Word History: Today's Good Word is an abbreviation of Latin ad libitum "to (one's) pleasure", composed of ad "(up) to" + libitum "pleasure", the noun from libere "to please", whence also libido. Ad is the PIE word for "to, by, at", source also of Sanskrit adhi "near", Welsh ag "with", Irish ag "at", and English at. Libere comes from PIE leubh-/loubh- "to love, care for", source also of Sanskrit lubhyati "desire strongly" and lobhayati "excite, aroused", Dutch liefde "love", German lieben "to love", Russian lyubit' "to love", Serbian ljubiti "to love", Polish lubić "to like", and Bulgarian lyubov "love". (Today's fascinating Good Word was another gift from longtime GW contributor Arnaldo Mandel.)
