contrived

[ kuhn-trahyvd ]

adjective

1. obviously planned or forced; artificial; strained:

   a contrived story.

contrived

/ kənˈtraɪvd /

adjective

1. obviously planned, artificial, or lacking in spontaneity; forced; unnatural

Other Words From

• con·triv·ed·ly [k, uh, n-trahy-vid-lee], adverb
• uncon·trived adjective
• well-con·trived adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of contrived¹

First recorded in 1505–15; contrive + -ed ²

Example Sentences

That’s when things got a little more contrived and cartoonish.

From Time

I’ve glossed over other exposition issues in a show in which the overall effect is both attenuated and weirdly contrived.

From Washington Post

In spite of the cameras, producers, and managers, the setting doesn’t feel particularly contrived.

From Outside Online

Creating fake sound for drivers who are used to hearing something when they step on the “gas” sounds contrived, because it is.

From Popular-Science

The plots are even more contrived than what you’d find in the average family sitcom, past or present.

From Time

Bone was a highly competent managing editor, and contrived somehow to squeeze us into the tumultuous Post office.

From The Daily Beast

Agents contrived for one paid federal informant and then another to introduce themselves into his life.

From The Daily Beast

Or, worse, they are contrived to sound tired, perhaps in an attempt to come off as world-weary.

From The Daily Beast

The story is schematic and contrived rather than palpable and lived.

From The Daily Beast

Granted, there was something fundamentally contrived about the experience—and not only because I was in Chicago instead of Spain.

From The Daily Beast

Scientists tell us that from the point of view of optics the human eye is a clumsy instrument poorly contrived for its work.

From Project Gutenberg

Anyway there was a lot of embroidery on it, full of little holes, which somehow contrived to be extraordinarily fetching.

From Project Gutenberg

Her clothes were good and new, but some desolate dressmaker had contrived to invest them with an air of hopeless dowdiness.

From Project Gutenberg

It was not purposely contrived, it was in automatic obedience to deeper impulses than she knew.

From Project Gutenberg

As a consequence several varieties of curtains, all involving the use of asbestos, have been contrived.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• false
• phony