Word.ws English Dictionary

in action

in action prepositional phrase: in operation; active.

Prepositional phrase

  1. In operation; active.
    • Seeing a steam engine in action is increasingly rare.
    • After a month in hospital, the reporter is back in action.
    Synonyms:
    at play, at work
  2. In combat.
    • He was wounded in action in his second tour.

Synonyms of in action

12 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

Words formed from in action

Questions about in action

What does in action mean?
In action means in operation; active.
What part of speech is in action?
In action is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in action in the dictionary

  1. in Abraham's bosom
  2. in absentia
  3. in abundance
  4. in accord
  5. in accordance with
  6. in action
  7. in actuality
  8. in addition
  9. in addition to
  10. in advance
  11. in advance of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in action (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: “in action.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_action. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.