Etimology
From Middle English accion, from Old French aucion, acciun, from Latin āctiō (“act of doing or making”), from āctus + action suffix -iō, perfect passive participle of agere (“do, act”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti; see also act, active. Morphologically act + -ion.
noun
action (countable and uncountable, plural actions)
The effort of performing or doing something.
Something done, often so as to accomplish a purpose.
A way of motion or functioning.
Fast-paced activity.
The way in which a mechanical device acts when used; especially a firearm.
(music) The mechanism, that is the set of moving mechanical parts, of a keyboard instrument, like a piano, which transfers the motion of the key to the sound-making device.
(music, lutherie) The distance separating the strings and the fingerboard on a string instrument.
(slang, typically with a quantifier) Sexual intercourse.
(military) Combat.
(law) A charge or other process in a law court (also called lawsuit and actio).
(mathematics) A mapping from a pairing of mathematical objects to one of them, respecting their individual structures. The pairing is typically a Cartesian product or a tensor product. The object that is not part of the output is said to act on the other object. In any given context, action is used as an abbreviation for a more fully named notion, like group action or left group action.
(physics) The product of energy and time, especially the product of the Lagrangian and time.
(literature) The event or connected series of events, either real or imaginary, forming the subject of a play, poem, or other composition; the unfolding of the drama of events.
(art, painting and sculpture) The attitude or position of the several parts of the body as expressive of the sentiment or passion depicted.
(bowling) spin put on the bowling ball.
(obsolete) A share in the capital stock of a joint-stock company, or in the public funds.
(Christianity) A religious performance or solemn function, i.e. action sermon, a sacramental sermon in the Scots Presbyterian Church.
(sciences) a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings).
A demonstration by activists.
Examples
Coordinate terms: occurrence, state of being
Knead bread with a rocking action.
a movie full of exciting action
pressing a piano key causes the action of the hammer on the string
pump-action shotgun
The run in bar 12 is almost impossible with this piano's heavy action.
You're getting fret buzz because the action is too low.
She gave him some action.
I hope to get a bit of action with the hot guy from the club.
He saw some action in the Korean War.
So saying he presented him with two actions of above two thousand livres each.
the Euripus of funds and actions
The Action Sermon is quite simply, then, the eucharistic sermon.
The protest was set up in less than three weeks by an ad hoc group called Act Up […] According to Kramer, Act Up will continue AIDS-related organizing, possibly inclcuding an action at an early June Washington, D.C., AIDS conference for scientists worldwide.
Related words
synonyms
(something done): deed; see also Thesaurus:action
hyponyms
action at a distance
direct action
social action
related terms
act
agency
agent
interjection
action!
Demanding or signifying the start of something, usually a performance.
Examples
Antonym: cut
The director yelled ‘Action!’ after the cameras started rolling.
adjective
action (comparative more action, superlative most action)
(Manglish) arrogant
verb
action (third-person singular simple present actions, present participle actioning, simple past and past participle actioned)
(transitive, management) To act on a request etc, in order to put it into effect.
(transitive, chiefly archaic) To initiate a legal action against someone.
Examples
‘Here, give me the minutes of Monday’s meeting. I’ll action your points for you while you get on and sort out the open day.’
Violent reactions from the Jewish authorities were expected and difficulties of actioning the new guidelines were foreseen.
HMRC said that one reason they had not actioned her appeal was because she had said in her appeal form ‘I am appealing against the overpayment for childcare for 2003-04, 2004-05’, thus implying she was disputing her ‘overpayment’.
‘I have no business to settle with you—arrest me, Sir, at your peril and I’ll action you in law for false imprisonment.’
“Scrip threatened me at first with an action for slander—he spoke of actions to the wrong man though—action! no, no no. I should have actioned him—ha! ha! [...]”
I have actioned him for Libel, but he won’t plead, and says he will make himself bankrupt & won’t pay a penny.
In 1589 the Court went so far as to effect a reconciliation between Michel le Petevin and his wife after she actioned him for ill treatment and adultery with their chambermaid.