to act superior
3
6.7
- phrasal verb
- I'm sick of you acting superior!
Examples
-
You get to travel around, act superior than everyone else, and eventually, you go home, get some boring job, have too many kids.
-
He constantly acts superior when discussing his wealth, making others feel uncomfortable.
-
I thought it was a way of acting superior.
-
You were talking about other people coming on here acting superior?
Blog text (20) -
So am I the A hole for acting superior at my middle school reunion?
-
It also provides them with a large ego that can make them act superior and could interfere with new learning.
Academic text (2007) -
Gus was such a perfectionist himself; it was satisfying for once to be able to act superior.
Fiction book (1995) -
He's getting confused about points on which there isn't confusion, or at least, is acting superior by pretending there is.
Blog text (10) -
It can be a very powerful and liberating thing to realize that a large percentage of the people who act superior to you are actually inferior... and not bright enough to realize it.
Blog text (12) -
She tends to act superior in meetings, often dismissing the ideas of her colleagues.
Synonyms
15
8.2
Treat someone as if you are better than them
15
7.5
To treat other people as if you are better than them
7
8.2
Act as if you are better than other people
6
8.4
Act as if you are better than other people
3
8.7
To act as if you are better than others and tell them they are wrong
1
8.3
Talk to someone in a way that shows you feel better than them
Behave as if others are less important
How Self-Righteous
- Informal
3
8.7
- Offensive
19
6.6
3
6.7
73
3.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'act' (to behave) with 'superior' (having higher status): a learner who knows both words can infer someone is behaving as if they are above others. This 'act + adjective' construction is a common, cross-linguistic pattern for describing behaviour, so the expression is transparently comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Act superior comes from the simple image of someone standing on a higher step and looking down, with act showing how a person behaves and superior meaning higher. So, to act superior means to behave as if you are 'better' than other people.