How to Use ad-lib in a Sentence

ad-lib

verb
  • Urban often ad-libs comments when performing the song live.
    — Emily Blackwood, PEOPLE, 2 Oct. 2025
  • The ad-lib dramatically changed the scene from how Trier and Vogt had written it.
    — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 5 Jan. 2026
  • Negron, in particular, completely throws himself into it, rasping and howling and wailing out ad-libs.
    — Paul Grein, Billboard, 3 Sep. 2019
  • They were encouraged to ad-lib in character as Guest collected more than 60 hours of footage before taking a year to whittle it down to 84 minutes.
    — Ryan Gajewski, HollywoodReporter, 11 Feb. 2026
  • Between the ad-libs to start the cut and rapping over drill 808s mixed with Jersey club, Cardi appears to be taking a page out of the Ice Spice playbook.
    — Michael Saponara, Billboard, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Puzzled, Aggie climbs the stairs and — as Nile continues to ad-lib — finds Teddy, dead, suffocated with a bag, in Cooper’s room, which is decked out to match the live feed.
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 14 Nov. 2025
  • Recently, Chance The Rapper told DJ Bootleg Kev about Mac playing a vital role in one of his most famous ad-libs, noting that the moment occurred during an LA recording session with Chuck Inglish.
    — Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Hynes’s grateful curatorial instincts (emboldened by appearances from everyone from Daniel Caesar to an ad-lib-lilting Zadie Smith) only further the contemplative-exuberance aesthetic, making Essex Honey his most quietly explosive album.
    — Will Dukes, Rolling Stone, 2 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ad-lib.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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