contrive

Universal Words verb (formal) 1 [Vtoinf] to manage to do sth in spite of difficulties: She contrived to spend a couple of hours with him every Sunday evening. * Somehow they contrived to live on her tiny income. 2 [VN] to succeed in making sth happen in spite of difficulties: I decided to contrive a meeting between the two of them. 3 [VN] to think of or make sth, for example a plan or a machine, in a clever way: They contrived a plan to defraud the company.