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Act of God   /ækt əv gɑd/   Listen
noun
Act  n.  
1.
That which is done or doing; the exercise of power, or the effect, of which power exerted is the cause; a performance; a deed. "That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love." Hence, in specific uses:
(a)
The result of public deliberation; the decision or determination of a legislative body, council, court of justice, etc.; a decree, edit, law, judgment, resolve, award; as, an act of Parliament, or of Congress.
(b)
A formal solemn writing, expressing that something has been done.
(c)
A performance of part of a play; one of the principal divisions of a play or dramatic work in which a certain definite part of the action is completed.
(d)
A thesis maintained in public, in some English universities, by a candidate for a degree, or to show the proficiency of a student.
2.
A state of reality or real existence as opposed to a possibility or possible existence. (Obs.) "The seeds of plants are not at first in act, but in possibility, what they afterward grow to be."
3.
Process of doing; action. In act, in the very doing; on the point of (doing). "In act to shoot." "This woman was taken... in the very act."
Act of attainder. (Law) See Attainder.
Act of bankruptcy (Law), an act of a debtor which renders him liable to be adjudged a bankrupt.
Act of faith. (Ch. Hist.) See Auto-da-Fe.
Act of God (Law), an inevitable accident; such extraordinary interruption of the usual course of events as is not to be looked for in advance, and against which ordinary prudence could not guard.
Act of grace, an expression often used to designate an act declaring pardon or amnesty to numerous offenders, as at the beginning of a new reign.
Act of indemnity, a statute passed for the protection of those who have committed some illegal act subjecting them to penalties.
Act in pais, a thing done out of court (anciently, in the country), and not a matter of record.
Synonyms: See Action.


God  n.  
1.
A being conceived of as possessing supernatural power, and to be propitiated by sacrifice, worship, etc.; a divinity; a deity; an object of worship; an idol. "He maketh a god, and worshipeth it." "The race of Israel... bowing lowly down To bestial gods."
2.
The Supreme Being; the eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator, and the Sovereign of the universe; Jehovah. "God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
3.
A person or thing deified and honored as the chief good; an object of supreme regard. "Whose god is their belly."
4.
Figuratively applied to one who wields great or despotic power. (R.)
Act of God. (Law) See under Act.
Gallery gods, the occupants of the highest and cheapest gallery of a theater. (Colloq.)
God's acre, God's field, a burial place; a churchyard. See under Acre.
God's house.
(a)
An almshouse. (Obs.)
(b)
A church.
God's penny, earnest penny. (Obs.)
God's Sunday, Easter.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Act of god" Quotes from Famous Books



... Each smaller act of God's judgment is connected with the final world-judgment, is a prophecy of it, is one in principle therewith; and He, who at the last will be known as the universal Judge of all, certainly cannot leave His servants' cause unredressed nor their cry unheard till then. The psalmist ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... plants and animals, passing in succession from one to another, before they could be permitted to enter into the bodies of those beings who were to be in God's likeness. But, in very truth, the elements were unaltered by their many transmigrations. It was the divine act of God which caused every plant to spring forth and gave birth to every living thing. Every seed and every egg was at the first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... monarchy; it may be an act of a God-fearing Protestant clergyman when he attempts to harry the Catholics by denying that the crucifix is the proper symbol of the Christian religion; it may be the act of God when a village is destroyed by an earthquake or an island ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... violation of natural laws by the fiat of the Creator, and hence is, in the strictest sense, supernatural; others hold that the miracle is simply the calling forth of a power residing in the laws of nature, but not within their ordinary operation, and dependent on a distinct act of God, so that the miraculous might be termed "extranatural," rather than supernatural. All that is beyond human power is superhuman; as, prophecy gives evidence of superhuman knowledge; the word is sometimes ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and I said, "You were preserved nevertheless. It was the act of God. You are in His hands and in the power of no other being: be therefore confident ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... that the white spaces and the big lettering of the headlines have an incongruously festive air to my eyes, a disagreeable effect of a feverish exploitation of a sensational God-send. And if ever a loss at sea fell under the definition, in the terms of a bill of lading, of Act of God, this one does, in its magnitude, suddenness and severity; and in the chastening influence it should have ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... priest, was seized at once with a malignant ulcer in the throat, which shortly killed him. The Itatines did not apparently think anything of the influence of the unhealthy climate in which they lived, and set the occurrence down to the act of God. ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... to whom, within fourteen days from this [ordeal], no great calamity happens, either from the monarch or by act of God, shall without doubt ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya


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