act up
— phrasal verb with act /ækt/ verbDefinition
› If a person, especially a child, acts up, they behave badly: Sophie got bored and started acting up.Bad and wrong behaviourDisobedientObeying and breaking the lawObedient and compliant › If a machine or part of the body acts up, it does not perform as well as it should: My car always acts up in cold weather. Her shoulder was acting up (= hurting because of injury).Not functioningPain and painful
(Definition of act up from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Bad and wrong behaviour, but you might be interested in these topics from the Good and bad topic area:
- Bad but attractive
- Behaving in a silly way
- Behaving well
- Dangerous and harmful
- Disobedient
- Extremely good
- Feeling morally superior
- Good and excellent things
- Good, better and best
- Informal words for bad
- Informal words for good
- Morality and rules of behaviour
- Morally wrong and evil
- Not good enough
- Not of good quality
- Obedient and compliant
- People having good qualities
- Quite good, or not very good
- Selfishness
- Serious and severe
- Serious and unpleasant
- Uncontrolled
- Unpleasant men
- Unpleasant people in general
- Unpleasant women
- Violent or aggressive
- Virtue and moral good
- Worse and worst
Browse the Thesaurus
More Results for “act up”
SMART Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words:
- astray adverb
- at your worst idiom
- be no angel idiom
- be up to no good idiom
- demon noun
- go off the rails idiom
- go round phrasal verb (BEHAVE BADLY)
- impossible adjective
- incorrigible adjective
- indecorous adjective
- misconduct noun (BAD MANAGEMENT)
- naughty adjective (BADLY BEHAVED)
- overstep the mark idiom
- rakish adjective
- reprehensible adjective
- try it on idiom
- unprincipled adjective
- unprofessional adjective
- while the cat's away, the mice will play idiom
- wrongdoing noun
Topic:
Bad and wrong behaviour
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