act on
Britishverb
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to regulate one's behaviour in accordance with (advice, information, etc)
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to have an effect on (illness, a part of the body, etc)
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Also, act upon . Conduct oneself in accordance with or as a result of information or another action, as in I will act on my lawyer's advice , or The manager refused to act upon the hotel guest's complaints . [c. 1800]
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Influence or affect, as in The baby's fussing acted on the sitter's nerves . [c. 1800]
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.
The elder statesmen of proto punk isn’t just another act on the Coachella bill.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026
"Like an LLM, VLA models act on statistical results from large training sets of similar scenarios, but that can lead to errors," said Scheutz.
From Science Daily • Apr. 5, 2026
If buy signals are confirmed, we will act on them, but we would prefer to see a positive change in the construct of volatility derivatives before doing anything too aggressive on the long side.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 26, 2026
Plaid Cymru said Wales must be "aware and alert" to public health threats and urged the government and NHS to adapt quickly and act on scientific evidence.
From BBC • Mar. 26, 2026
“If anything should happen to me, or anything should upset the plan, everyone must act on his own with the goal in mind to complete the operation,” Ronneberg insisted.
From "Bomb" by Steve Sheinkin
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.
