Actions

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ac·tion

(ăk′shən)

1. The state or process of acting or doing: The medical team went into action.

2. Something that is done or accomplished; a deed. See Usage Note at act.

3. Organized activity to accomplish an objective: a problem requiring drastic action.

4. The causation of change by the exertion of power or a natural process: the action of waves on a beach; the action of a drug on blood pressure.

5. Habitual or vigorous activity; energy: a woman of action.

6. often actions Behavior or conduct.

7. Law A proceeding brought before a court to obtain relief; a lawsuit.

a. Armed encounter; combat: missing in action.

b. An engagement between troops or ships: fought a rear-guard action.

9. The most important or exciting work or activity in a specific field or area: always heads for where the action is.

10.

a. A movement or a series of movements, as of an actor.

b. Manner of movement: a horse with fine action.

c. The appearance of animation of a figure in painting or sculpture.

11.

a. The series of events and episodes that form the plot of a story or play: The action of the novel takes place over 40 years in the South.

b. A series or number of fast-moving, exciting, or dangerous events, especially in a movie: liked the film because there was so much action.

12.

a. The operating parts of a mechanism.

b. The manner in which such parts operate.

c. The manner in which a musical instrument can be played; playability: a piano with quick action.

ac′tion·less adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Actions

See Also: BEHAVIOR, CAUTION, LEAPING, JUMPING, MOVEMENT, VIOLENCE

Acting without thinking is like shooting without aiming —B. C. Forbes
The actions of men are like the index of a book; they point out what is most remarkable in them —Heinrich Heine
Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year —Sir John Denham
[Meaningless] actions that seemed like a charade played behind thick glass —Franz Werfel
See Also: IMPORTANCE/UNIMPORTANCE
All action is involved in imperfection, like fire and smoke —Bhagavad-Gita
Driven to make a move, like a dilatory chess player prodded on by an impatient opponent —Harvey Swados
Evil deeds are like perfume, difficult to hide —George Herzog
A good deed will stick out with an inclination to spread like the tail of a peacock —Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms
Our deeds are like children born to us; they live and act apart from our own will —George Eliot
Our least deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity —Henry David Thoreau
Reprehensible actions are like overstrong brandies; you cannot swallow them at a draught —Victor Hugo
The acts of my life swarm down the street like Puerto Rican kids —William Meredith
Trying to shake off the sun as a dog would shake off the sea —James Dickey
The vilest deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air —Oscar Wilde

References in classic literature ?

Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions themselves, and these--thought and character--are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or failure depends.

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

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In its subtlest operations, further, Imagination penetrates below the surface and comprehends and brings to light the deeper forces and facts--the real controlling instincts of characters, the real motives for actions, and the relations of material things to those of the spiritual world and of Man to Nature and God.

If in any narrative there is one or more Secondary Action, a story which might be separated from the Main Action and viewed as complete in itself, criticism should always ask whether the Main and Secondary Actions are properly unified.

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Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions,[*] but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.

I believe also that he will be successful who directs his actions according to the spirit of the times, and that he whose actions do not accord with the times will not be successful.

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It would be easy to show that several distinct mental actions are commonly embraced by this term; but every one understands what is meant, when it is said that instinct impels the cuckoo to migrate and to lay her eggs in other birds' nests.

I cannot see that these actions, performed without experience by the young, and in nearly the same manner by each individual, performed with eager delight by each breed, and without the end being known,--for the young pointer can no more know that he points to aid his master, than the white butterfly knows why she lays her eggs on the leaf of the cabbage,--I cannot see that these actions differ essentially from true instincts.

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It does what it does at each stage because instinct gives it an impulse to do just that, not because it foresees and desires the result of its actions.*

* An interesting discussion of the question whether instinctive actions, when first performed, involve any prevision, however vague, will be found in Lloyd Morgan's "Instinct and Experience"

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Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it, losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies, and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by Kutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.

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That in passing our judgments on great and mighty actions, all private regards should be laid aside; for by adhering to those narrow rules, the younger Brutus had been condemned of ingratitude, and the elder of parricide."