activity
Americannoun
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activities
plural
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the state or quality of being active.
There was not much activity in the stock market today. He doesn't have enough physical activity in his life.
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a specific deed, action, function, or sphere of action.
social activities.
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work, especially in elementary grades at school, that involves direct experience by the student rather than textbook study.
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energetic activity; animation; liveliness.
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a use of energy or force; an active movement or operation.
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normal mental or bodily power, function, or process.
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Physical Chemistry. the capacity of a substance to react, corrected for the loss of reactivity due to the interaction of its constituents.
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Physics.
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the number of atoms of a radioactive substance that disintegrate per unit of time, usually expressed in curies.
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an organizational unit or the function it performs.
noun
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the state or quality of being active
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lively action or movement
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any specific deed, action, pursuit, etc
recreational activities
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the number of disintegrations of a radioactive substance in a given unit of time, usually expressed in curies or disintegrations per second
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the capacity of a substance to undergo chemical change
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the effective concentration of a substance in a chemical system. The absolute activity of a substance B, λ B , is defined as exp (μ B RT ) where μ B is the chemical potential
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of activity
First recorded in 1520–30; from Middle French or directly from Medieval Latin āctīvitās; see active, -ity
Explanation
An activity is something you do, or just the state of doing. You might plan some indoor activities for a rainy day, or you might just rely on watching your gerbils' activity in their cage. Usually, when you use an article like an or the in front of activity, you are referring to a specific event. For example, you might search for the best activity on the cruise ship to fill your afternoon — shuffleboard, anyone? If you take the article away, and you refer to activity, you are usually referring to action. If there is too much activity on the cruise ship dance floor, you might want to avoid that zone.
Vocabulary lists containing activity
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ity, -ty
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act, List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Southern Syria is vulnerable to terrorist activity; such groups have operated near the Israeli border before.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
It encourages physical activity throughout the day, cooking fresh, local ingredients, and sitting down for a slow meal with family and friends.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 16, 2026
El Nino, a natural climate pattern when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, tends to promote hurricane activity in the Pacific while suppressing it in the Atlantic.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
They then monitored food consumption, body weight, fat mass, blood sugar control and brain activity.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
Like Brugman, Swanson, and Johnston, CVO scientists also monitor active volcanoes through ground deformation, seismic activity, and gas emissions.
From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone
Construction is expected to begin this year, trying to minimize impact on normal campus activities.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
It added that "as a sign of respect and mourning" the main sponsors of the event had agreed to cancel all activities for the remaining two stages.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
They attend concerts, meet career coaches, reserve study rooms, download software, join student organizations, and participate in countless campus activities without ever reaching for a wallet.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
The World Meteorological Organization has called for more scientific research, pointing to a "rise in demand for these activities ... due to the frequency of droughts".
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
There are other people, straggling revelers, giddy still with the war’s end, and clogging up the streets with their unfamiliar nocturnal activities.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
