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Plan vs Improvise - What's the difference?

plan | improvise |

As verbs the difference between plan and improvise

is that plan is to design (a building, machine, etc.) while improvise is to make something up or invent it as one goes on; to proceed guided only by imagination, instinct, and guesswork rather than by a careful plan.

As a noun plan

is a drawing showing technical details of a building, machine, etc., with unwanted details omitted, and often using symbols rather than detailed drawing to represent doors, valves, etc.

As a proper noun PLAN

is the People's Liberation Army Navy.

plan

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A drawing showing technical details of a building, machine, etc., with unwanted details omitted, and often using symbols rather than detailed drawing to represent doors, valves, etc.
  • The plans for many important buildings were once publicly available.
  • A set of intended actions, usually mutually related, through which one expects to achieve a goal.
  • He didn't really have a plan ; he had a goal and a habit of control.
  • A two-dimensional drawing of a building as seen from above with obscuring or irrelevant details such as roof removed, or of a floor of a building, revealing the internal layout; as distinct from the elevation.
  • Seen in plan , the building had numerous passageways not apparent to visitors.
  • A method; a way of procedure; a custom.
  • * Wordsworth
  • The simple plan , / That they should take who have the power, / And they should keep who can.

    Usage notes

    * A plan ("set of intended actions") can be developed, executed, implemented, ignored, abandoned, scrapped, changed, etc.

    Synonyms

    * (drawing of a building from above): floor plan

    Derived terms

    * battleplan * floor plan * business plan * development plan * marketing plan * masterplan * game plan * contingency plan * action plan * escalation plan * lesson plan * plan A * plan B * price plan * rate plan

    Verb

    (plann)
  • To design (a building, machine, etc.).
  • To create a plan for.
  • To intend.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.}}
  • See plan on.
  • To make a plan.
  • Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See

    Derived terms

    * planner * plan on * plan out

    Statistics

    *

    improvise

    English

    Verb

  • To make something up or invent it as one goes on; to proceed guided only by imagination, instinct, and guesswork rather than by a careful plan.
  • He had no speech prepared, so he improvised .
    They improvised a simple shelter with branches and the rope they were carrying.
    She improvised a lovely solo.

    Synonyms

    * fly by the seat of one's pants, play by ear, punt, think on one's feet, wing it

    Derived terms

    * improvisation * improvisational

    See also

    * extemporaneous * impromptu * off the cuff ----