51Թ

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View synonyms for

act up

verb

  1. informal(intr, adverb) to behave in a troublesome way

    the engine began to act up when we were miles from anywhere

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Idioms and Phrases

Misbehave. For example, With an inexperienced rider, this horse always acts up . [c. 1900]

Malfunction, as in I'm not sure what's wrong with my car, but the transmission is acting up . In both usages up means “abnormally.”

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

RCA still sees plenty of room for Sleep Token and its ilk to win freshly curious audiences, and conjure even more metal acts up the charts.

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I started acting up simply to keep myself occupied.

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In the early years, he said, he acted up, raking up disciplinary infractions that landed him in solitary confinement.

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I told her the camera is going to be constantly running, so when she’s acting up — and I wanted to open the film with that — she knew that was being recorded.

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One testified that Adams said he would never “take a kid’s word” over that of a staffer; another said Adams matter-of-factly passed along the advice he had received about beating kids if they acted up.

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actuatoract upon