Word.ws English Dictionary

acted up

acted up is the simple past and past participle of act up.

Meaning of act up

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.
  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.

Questions about acted up

What is acted up the simple past and past participle of?
Acted up is the simple past and past participle of act up.

Words near acted up in the dictionary

  1. acted the goat
  2. acted the hypocrite
  3. acted the jennet
  4. acted the jinnet
  5. acted the maggot
  6. acted up
  7. acted upon
  8. acted-out
  9. actedron
  10. actedst
  11. acteme

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: acted up (page history and authors); act up (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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Cite this entry: “acted up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/acted_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.