to act up
28
4.8
- phrasal verb
- /ækt ʌp/
- Informal
:
comportarse mal
- Why you gotta act up every time we go someplace?
Maybe once they start acting up, you call the event done.
- Maybe once they start acting up, you call the event done.
- Like people are acting up a bit, you know what I mean?
- But Prairie Home Companion, when I would drive my kids around, I would always threaten them if they acted up in the car.
- Let me say this, people better be glad my husband is by my side because there are people in Hollywood that know wherever you act up is where I show up.
- And I wasn't acting up as much in school anymore because I started doing plays, like theater plays and stuff like that with adults.
- He incites the fervent believers of his cause to act up and push the boundaries bordering on and potentially even including breaking the law.
- And with some of these patterns you will see days when the narcissist is acting up.
Examples
-
The computer's acting up again.
-
And I think that as a parent, now that I'm in that position and my child acts up, yeah, of course we have to discipline them.
-
Maybe once they start acting up, you call the event done.
-
Like people are acting up a bit, you know what I mean?
-
The little guy's been acting up.
-
Is that thing acting up again?
-
When children don't get the love they need, they act up enough to get on their parents' nerves.
Fiction book (1994) -
And my husband's gout is acting up, so he couldn't do much walking.
Blog text (7) -
Students do not have to worry about favoritism from instructors or class clowns acting up in class.
Academic text (2010) -
When the children act up during class, it makes it hard for the teacher to maintain order.
Synonyms
53
4.2
To behave in a silly or noisy way that annoys people
37
2.8
To act in a rude way or break rules
32
5.5
Show strong feelings by behaving badly instead of talking
Antonyms
How Disruptive
7
4.1
- Informal
18
4.4
- Informal
28
4.8
37
2.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The base verb 'act' (to behave) makes the human-behaviour sense partly derivable, but the particle 'up' does not literally mean 'badly' or 'malfunction' and its contribution is idiomatic and variable. Because the combination suggests abnormal or problematic behaviour/malfunction but requires familiarity with phrasal-verb patterns to predict both human and mechanical senses, the expression is only partially predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Act up can also mean to misbehave or stop working properly. Think of act (behave) plus up (more extreme) — a child, a dog, or a machine that suddenly 'acts' in a noisy or wrong way and causes trouble. So act up means 'to behave badly' or 'not work properly'.