Word.ws English Dictionary

act up

UK/ækt ˈʌp/US/ækt ˈʌp/

act up verb: to misbehave; to cause trouble.

Verb

act up (third-person singular simple present acts up, present participle acting up, simple past and past participle acted up)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To misbehave; to cause trouble.
    • My allergies act up during hay fever season.
    • Children may act up in class in an effort to get attention.
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To perform the duties of an appointment senior to that actually held; to deputise for a superior.
    • Acting up is always recommended when you find yourself under a new boss.
    • A few months through my contract, my clinical supervisor said that a registrar was leaving the post early for a research job, and asked if I’d be interested in acting up on the rota.2017, Adam Kay, This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

act up meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

act up in Tamil

மோசமான, புதிரான முறையில் நடந்து கொள்தல்

act up in Bengali

দুষ্টুমি করা, গোলমাল করা, উর্ধ্বতনের বদলে প্রতিনিধিত্ব করা

act up in Malayalam

behave badly, misbehve, get up to mischief
മര്യാദകേടായി പെരുമാറുക, മോശമായി പെരുമാറുക, കുഴപ്പം സൃഷ്ടിക്കുക, ശല്യം ചെയ്യുക, തണ്ടുതപ്പുക, അപചരിക്കുക
go wrong, malfunction, be defective
വേണ്ടരീതിയിൽ പ്രവർത്തിക്കാതിരിക്കുക, കേടാകുക, തകരാറാവുക, കേടുപറ്റുക, കോട്ടം പറ്റുക, ഉദ്ദേശിച്ചപോലെ നടക്കാതിരിക്കുക

Synonyms of act up

Forms of act up

third-person singular presentacts up
present participleacting up
past participleacted up
pastacted up

Words that rhyme with act up

12 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about act up

What does act up mean?
Act up means to misbehave; to cause trouble.
What is act up in Tamil?
Act up in Tamil is மோசமான, புதிரான முறையில் நடந்து கொள்தல். See Act up meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is act up?
Act up is a verb.
How do you pronounce act up?
Act up is pronounced /ækt ˈʌp/ (UK).
What is the past tense of act up?
The past tense of act up is acted up.

Words near act up in the dictionary

  1. act the goat
  2. act the hypocrite
  3. act the jennet
  4. act the jinnet
  5. act the maggot
  6. act up
  7. act upon
  8. act.
  9. ACTA
  10. actabilities
  11. actability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: act up (page history and authors); act up (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); act up (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); act up (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-act up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “act up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/act_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.