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act one's age, not one's shoe size

act one's age, not one's shoe size verb: synonym of act one's age (“to behave in a mature manner; to avoid being childish”).

Verb

act one's age, not one's shoe size (third-person singular simple present acts one's age, not one's shoe size, present participle acting one's age, not one's shoe size, simple past and past participle acted one's age, not one's shoe size)

  1. (idiomatic, imperative, usually) Synonym of act one's age (“to behave in a mature manner; to avoid being childish”).
    • You should act your age, not your shoe size!
    Synonyms:
    act one's age

Synonyms of act one's age, not one's shoe size

Forms of act one's age, not one's shoe size

third-person singular presentacts one's age, not one's shoe size
present participleacting one's age, not one's shoe size
past participleacted one's age, not one's shoe size
pastacted one's age, not one's shoe size

Origin of act one's age, not one's shoe size

In reference to a person's shoe size (in the US or UK shoe size systems) usually being much lower than their age.

Questions about act one's age, not one's shoe size

What does act one's age, not one's shoe size mean?
Act one's age, not one's shoe size means synonym of act one's age (“to behave in a mature manner; to avoid being childish”).
What part of speech is act one's age, not one's shoe size?
Act one's age, not one's shoe size is a verb.
What is the past tense of act one's age, not one's shoe size?
The past tense of act one's age, not one's shoe size is acted one's age, not one's shoe size.

Words near act one's age, not one's shoe size in the dictionary

  1. Act of Parliament clocks
  2. act of sederunt
  3. act of war
  4. act on
  5. act one's age
  6. act one's age, not one's shoe size
  7. act out
  8. act possum
  9. act psychology
  10. act the fool
  11. act the giddy goat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: act one's age, not one's shoe size (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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