Word.ws English Dictionary

acts up

acts up is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 acts up

What is acts up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Acts up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of act up.

Words near acts up in the dictionary

  1. acts the goat
  2. acts the hypocrite
  3. acts the jennet
  4. acts the jinnet
  5. acts the maggot
  6. acts up
  7. acts upon
  8. ACTT
  9. ACTU
  10. actuability
  11. actual

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: acts 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: “acts up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/acts_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.