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Act up   /ækt əp/   Listen
Act up

verb
1.
Misbehave badly; act in a silly or improper way.  Synonym: carry on.
2.
Make itself felt as a recurring pain.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Act up" Quotes from Famous Books



... pursue the customary train of reasoning on board a ship that one has practised ashore. Rose had felt this embarrassment during the past month, for the whole of which time she had scarcely been in a condition to act up to her true character, suffering her energies, and in some measure her faculties, to be drawn into the vortex produced by the bustle, novelties, and scenes of the vessel and the ocean. But, now she was once more on the land, diminutive and naked as was the islet that composed her present ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... does not become a gracious king to bestow it." If you ask me, I applaud Antigonus; for it is not to be endured that a man who despises money should ask for it. Your cynic has publicly proclaimed his hatred of money, and assumed the character of one who despises it: let him act up to his professions. It is most inconsistent for him to earn money by glorifying his poverty. I wish to use Chrysippus's simile of the game of ball, in which the ball must certainly fall by the fault either of the thrower or of the catcher; it only holds its course when it passes between ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... Venetians were thinkers compared with you, and smuggled their gospel into the paw of their lion.... Why don't you follow their example, in order not to be unnecessarily embarrassed by it in your enterprises abroad? In this manner you could also reconcile the proper Germans, who invariably act up to their theories, their Christianity, their democratic principles, although, on the other hand, in so doing you would, I quite agree, be most unfaithful to your own traditions, which are of a more democratic character than those of any other ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... hold women in the background as a kind of porcelain liable to crack and breakage unless daintily handled. Women here see the spirit of the age and the need of change far more clearly than the men, and act up to this light, but with a flexible grace that disarms opposition. They see the necessity of work and are turning their attention to methods for remunerative labor, far more difficult to obtain at the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... continued, "you have doubtless spoken of the love of a young man. Well, if you wish to act up to the scope which you give to your ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac


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