act
/ækt/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.30 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
Initialism of the Australian Capital Territory: a federal territory of Australia.
name
Initialism of American College Test.
name
Initialism of Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, a political party of New Zealand.
name
Initialism of Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, a political party of New Zealand.
New Zealand usage
noun
An instance of a certain standardized college admissions test in the United States, originally called the American College Test.
Countable
Example Sentences
- "Osteoporosis Australia is calling for the 'no hat, no play' policy in school playgrounds to be reassessed in the ACT and Tasmania, because children are not getting enough sunlight."
- "an act of goodwill"
- "That best portion of a good man's life, / His little, nameless, unremembered acts / Of kindness and of love."
- "The seeds of plants are not at first in act, but in possibility, what they afterward grow to be."
- "But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea."
- "Under current law, employers can drag out the union election process... Under the PRO Act, workers and the NLRB set union election procedures. The employer is not involved."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Latin ācta Old French actbor. Middle English acte English act From Middle English acte, from Old French acte, from Latin ācta (“register of events”), plural of āctum (“decree, law”), from agere (“to do, to act”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti. Compare German Akte (“file”). Partially displaced deed, from Old English dǣd (“act, deed”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *h₂eǵ-, acte, ācta, *h₂éǵeti
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ækt/
- British English: /ækt/
Usage
Inflected Forms
A.C.T. (alternative)
A. C. T. (alternative)
ACTs (plural)
acts (present, singular)
acting (participle, present)
acted (participle, past)
acted (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
acted (first person, past)
actest (archaic, present)
acted (past, second person)