Word.ws English Dictionary

direct action

direct action noun: a form of political activism in which participants act illegally, ignoring established democratic procedures. It may take the form of strikes, workplace occupations, sabotage, sit-ins, squatting, revolutionary/guerrilla warfare, demonstrations, vandalism or graffiti.

Noun

direct action (usually uncountable, plural direct actions)

  1. (euphemistic, usually) A form of political activism in which participants act illegally, ignoring established democratic procedures. It may take the form of strikes, workplace occupations, sabotage, sit-ins, squatting, revolutionary/guerrilla warfare, demonstrations, vandalism or graffiti.
    • Or there are those who believe that in general the wisest way for people to get what they want is by the indirect method of voting into power some one who will make what they want legal; yet who all the same will occasionally under exceptional conditions advise a strike; and a strike, as I have...1912, Voltairine de Cleyre, Direct Action
    • It should be easy enough to see why anarchists have always been drawn to direct action.2009, David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography, AK Press, →ISBN, page 203
  2. (usually) Small-scale raids, ambushes, sabotage, etc. carried out by the military.

direct action meaning in Tamil

direct action in Tamil

நேரடி நடவடிக்கை, நேர்முக நடவடிக்கை

Forms of direct action

pluraldirect actions

Words formed from direct action

Questions about direct action

What does direct action mean?
Direct action means a form of political activism in which participants act illegally, ignoring established democratic procedures. It may take the form of strikes, workplace occupations, sabotage, sit-ins, squatting, revolutionary/guerrilla warfare, demonstrations, vandalism or graffiti.
What is direct action in Tamil?
Direct action in Tamil is நேரடி நடவடிக்கை, நேர்முக நடவடிக்கை. See Direct action meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is direct action?
Direct action is a noun.
What is the plural of direct action?
The plural of direct action is direct actions.

Words near direct action in the dictionary

  1. dire wolves
  2. direcshun
  3. direcshuns
  4. direct
  5. direct access
  6. direct action
  7. direct actioner
  8. direct actioners
  9. direct actionist
  10. direct actionists
  11. direct actions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: direct action (page history and authors); direct action (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-direct action.ogg.

Cite this entry: “direct action.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/direct_action. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.