action

English Online Dictionary. What means action‎? What does action mean?

English

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæk.ʃən/
• Hyphenation: ac‧tion
• Rhymes: -ækʃən

Noun

action (countable and uncountable, plural actions)

1. The effort of performing or doing something.
2. Something done, often so as to accomplish a purpose.

   Coordinate terms: (what verbs can express) occurrence, state of being

3. A way of motion or functioning.

4. Fast-paced activity.

5. The way in which a mechanical device acts when used; especially a firearm.
   1. (firearms) The way in which cartridges are loaded, locked, and extracted from the mechanism.

6. (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.

7. (music, lutherie) The distance separating the strings and the fingerboard on a string instrument.

8. (slang, typically with a quantifier) Sexual intercourse.

9. (military) Combat.

10. (law) A charge or other process in a law court (also called lawsuit and actio).
11. (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.
13. (physics) The product of energy and time, especially the product of the Lagrangian and time.
14. (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.
15. (art, painting and sculpture) The attitude or position of the several parts of the body as expressive of the sentiment or passion depicted.
16. (bowling) spin put on the bowling ball.
17. (obsolete) A share in the capital stock of a joint-stock company, or in the public funds.
18. (Christianity) A religious performance or solemn function, i.e. action sermon, a sacramental sermon in the Scots Presbyterian Church.
19. (sciences) a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings).
20. A demonstration by activists.

Synonyms

• (something done): deed; see also Thesaurus:action

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• → Bulgarian: екшън (ekšǎn)
• → German: Action
• → Irish: aicsean
• → Japanese: アクション (akushon)
• → Korean: 액션 (aeksyeon)
• → Russian: экшн (ekšn)

Translations

See also

• deed
• Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take

References

• action on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Interjection

action!

1. Demanding or signifying the start of something, usually a performance.

   Antonym: cut

Translations

Adjective

action (comparative more action, superlative most action)

1. (Manglish) arrogant

Verb

action (third-person singular simple present actions, present participle actioning, simple past and past participle actioned)

1. (transitive, management) To act on a request etc, in order to put it into effect.
2. (transitive, chiefly archaic) To initiate a legal action against someone.

Usage notes

• The verb sense action is rejected by some usage authorities.

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989
• Notes:

Further reading

• “action”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “action”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Catino, actino-, atonic, cation, cation-π

French

Etymology

From Old French acciun, aucion, etymologically reconstructed in Middle French to resemble the Latin actiōnem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ak.sjɔ̃/
• Homophone: axion

Noun

action f (plural actions)

1. action, act, deed

   une bonne action ― a good deed

2. campaign

3. stock, share

4. (Switzerland) a special offer

Derived terms

Descendants

• Saint Dominican Creole French: z'action
• → Ottoman Turkish: آقسیون (aksiyon)
  • Turkish: aksiyon
• → Romanian: acțiune

Further reading

• “action”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• cation, contai

Interlingua

Noun

action (plural actiones)

1. action

Related terms

• active
• activitate

Middle English

Noun

action

1. Alternative form of accion

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French acciun, aucion, etymologically reconstructed to resemble the Latin actiō.

Noun

action f (plural actions)

1. action; act

Descendants

• French: action

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English accion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /akˈʃən/

Noun

action (plural actions)

1. action

Verb

action (third-person singular simple present actions, present participle actionin, simple past actiont, past participle actiont)

1. to action

References

• Eagle, Andy, ed. (2016) The Online Scots Dictionary, Scots Online.

Swedish

Noun

action

1. action (intense activity)

Usage notes

Uninflected.

Derived terms

• actionfilm (“action movie”)
• actionhjälte (“action hero”)

See also

• aktion
• auktion

References

• action in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• action in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)