wing it

1. Improvise, as in The interviewer had not read the author's book; he was just winging it. This expression comes from the theater, where it alludes to an actor studying his part in the wings (the areas to either side of the stage) because he has been suddenly called on to replace another. First recorded in 1885, it eventually was extended to other kinds of improvisation based on unpreparedness.

Example Sentences

Sometimes, to build capacity or save lives, a relief organization simply has to wing it.

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But for some in Israel's hardline religious nationalist right wing, it is also an opportunity, even a time of miracles that heralds the coming of the messiah.

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I don’t wing it and hope everything will turn out OK anymore.

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While Darcy Graham's dancing feet threaten on one wing, it was Duhan van der Merwe's power that shrugged off Ellis Mee on the other, creating space for Huw Jones on the outside.

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It’s about the particular kind of broad brush with which this discourse painted, about its pretense at playfulness and irony, when it was actually pretty indignant about old hierarchies eroding, and about its unwillingness to admit just how right wing it really was.

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