precontrive

There was nothing contrived about the celebrations that greeted the news of the President’s intervention.

Many conversations feel rehearsed, and many gatherings appear contrived to bring characters into conflict.

This app got me thinking about how contrived all of our units of measurement are, but how they seem to make sense when we apply them to the correct things.

In ancient Sparta, the lawgiver Lycurgus had contrived to make his constitution permanently unamendable.

Yet he never met her, even when it would have been easy to contrive an encounter.

There are thousands of ways to contrive a weapon that's at least as dangerous a two-inch hobby knife.

He must contrive to keep his family alive as he strategizes.

The Republicans contrive new ways every day to get less popular.

That made me think, maybe they can contrive to do something similar on the mandate.

Everybody understands that politicians contrive photo opportunities in which they can perform "care" and "concern."

If any one of the parts should be lost or broken, it would require some ability in that country to contrive a substitute.

You generally contrive to make yourself useful to your father in one way or another.

I knew too well that if I took any legal measures, he would contrive to shift the whole burden of lunacy upon me.

The cabin instantly obeyed them, and they having entered it began to consult how they should contrive to live there.

Our great object was, as the reader will naturally suppose, to contrive some way of escape.