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
A power of attorney for healthcare decisions will ensure that he has someone to act on his behalf in a medical context.
From MarketWatch • 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
As often in such large-scale attacks, it was preceded by warnings and criticism has been mounting over the authorities' failure to act on these advance signals, Le Cour Grandmaison says.
From BBC • Mar. 31, 2026
“Shouldn’t you be able to prove it before you act on something like that?”
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
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.
