transitive verb

• 1Create or bring about (an object or a situation) by deliberate use of skill and artifice.

  ‘his opponents contrived a crisis’

  More example sentences

  • ‘you contrived to be alone with me despite the supervision’
  • ‘I do not think these coincidences were consciously contrived.’
  • ‘The plot contrives miracles and coincidence to suggest there's something deeper going on behind the free-wheeling mess on-screen.’
  • ‘I was satisfied, however, that her account of the relevant conversations was an honest one, in the sense that they had not been deliberately contrived by her as a false account.’
  • ‘Another dictionary I looked at actually states that an architect is a person who plans, devises, or contrives the achievement of a desired result.’
  • ‘And since I'm making melodrama, contriving a plot is hardly a betrayal of that.’
  • ‘The ones contriving the plan knew well enough to keep it secret from many friends and foes, and conned well enough to develop new technology almost completely foreign to the offending cultures.’
  • ‘He briefly tried his hand at furniture design and excels at contriving quirky contraptions and uncanny objects, some of which find their way into elaborate environments.’
  • ‘Gilda soon runs away from the horrible situation, but Johnny contrives her return for a final confrontation.’
  • ‘Expression of the firm's history is contrived through design of the lobby.’
  • ‘The real miracle, though, is that you could contrive a way to have a food crisis.’
  • ‘As a consequence story-writers are forced to contrive elaborate plots that just go on and on and on.’
  • ‘She knows that she must not run and yet, desperate as she is, cannot contrive an escape plan.’
  • ‘It is something that cannot be contrived in normal circumstances.’
  • ‘We contrived a number of chances to claim the biggest scalp of all during that game, but a couple of individual errors cost us dear.’
  • ‘The referendum itself was completely contrived.’
  • ‘The student had fabricated the story and, as it later appeared, contrived the voice of the second source as well.’
  • ‘To complete his tapestry of interwoven plots, the resolution had to be brilliantly contrived.’
  • ‘He clearly did not want another plan for his assassination to be contrived.’
  • ‘Fragments are always contrived into a structure of continuity and context.’
  • ‘And truly the point is not to contrive a precise plan or even to pass a plan that does all of the above.’

  Synonyms

  bring about, engineer, cause to happen, manufacture, orchestrate, stage-manage, create

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1Manage to do something foolish or create an undesirable situation.
     ‘the poor guy in some way contrived to hang himself’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Scotland contrived to manage what eight different nations had failed signally to do in Cardiff yesterday - they lost to Wales.’
     • ‘Where other managements would somehow contrive to squeeze double the number of rooms within the same confines, they always seems to go in the opposite direction, as though trying to see how few rooms he can incorporate.’
     • ‘By doing so they contrived to create, among other problems, the great gasoline shortage of the 1970s.’
     • ‘Even if you manage to get them in, they will contrive to escape at the first opportunity.’
     • ‘Both contrive to produce misses out of impossibly promising situations.’
     • ‘Were the Gods contriving to do us down once more on the major stage of the championship day?’
     • ‘It contrives to combine boastfulness, ignorance, insecurity and hostility in ample and self-reinforcing measures.’
     • ‘And, like a rash that won't go away, he contrives to be everywhere.’
     • ‘For a man who spends so much time in the gym and out on the golf course, he contrives to keep remarkably poor health.’
     • ‘However, it never ceases to amaze me how this country contrives to waste its natural assets.’
     • ‘Credit to both sides for braving the elements and playing this game but, really, the weather contrived to make good football impossible and this game was very one-sided indeed.’
     Synonyms

     manage, find a way, engineer a way, arrange

     View synonyms