verb
- Make or work out a plan for; devise.
- usage: "They contrived to murder their boss"; "design a new sales strategy"; "plan an attack"
- Come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort.
- usage: "excogitate a way to measure the speed of light"
- Put or send forth.
- usage: "She threw the flashlight beam into the corner"; "The setting sun threw long shadows"; "cast a spell"; "cast a warm light"
adjective
- Showing effects of planning or manipulation.
- usage: "a novel with a contrived ending"
- Artificially formal.
- usage: "that artificial humility that her husband hated"; "contrived coyness"; "a stilted letter of acknowledgment"; "when people try to correct their speech they develop a stilted pronunciation"
- synonyms: artificial, hokey, stilted
WordNet 3.0 © 2006 by Princeton University
| APA | WordNet. (2010). contrived. Retrieved September 20, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/contrived/definitions/1171375 |
| Chicago | WordNet. 2010. "contrived" http://smartdefine.org/contrived/definitions/1171375 (accessed September 20, 2026). |
| Harvard | WordNet 2010, contrived, Smart Define, viewed 20 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/contrived/definitions/1171375>. |
| MLA | WordNet. "contrived" 23 October 2010. Web. 20 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/contrived/definitions/1171375> |