Act (ăkt), n. [L. actus, fr. agere to drive, do: cf. F. acte. See Agent.] 1. That which is done or doing; the exercise of power, or the effect, of which power exerted is the cause; a performance; a deed.
That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
Wordsworth.
Hence, in specific uses: (a) The result of public deliberation; the decision or determination of a legislative body, council, court of justice, etc.; a decree, edit, law, judgment, resolve, award; as, an act of Parliament, or of Congress. (b) A formal solemn writing, expressing that something has been done. Abbott. (c) A performance of part of a play; one of the principal divisions of a play or dramatic work in which a certain definite part of the action is completed. (d) A thesis maintained in public, in some English universities, by a candidate for a degree, or to show the proficiency of a student.
2. A state of reality or real existence as opposed to a possibility or possible existence.
The seeds of plants are not at first in act, but in possibility, what they afterward grow to be.
Hooker.
3. Process of doing; action. In act, in the very doing; on the point of (doing). “In act to shoot.” Dryden.
This woman was taken... in the very act.
John viii. 4.
Act of attainder. (Law) See Attainder. — Act of bankruptcy(Law), an act of a debtor which renders him liable to be adjudged a bankrupt. — Act of faith. (Ch. Hist.) See Auto-da-Fé. — Act of God(Law), an inevitable accident; such extraordinary interruption of the usual course of events as is not to be looked for in advance, and against which ordinary prudence could not guard. — Act of grace, an expression often used to designate an act declaring pardon or amnesty to numerous offenders, as at the beginning of a new reign. — Act of indemnity, a statute passed for the protection of those who have committed some illegal act subjecting them to penalties. Abbott. — Act in pais, a thing done out of court (anciently, in the country), and not a matter of record.
Syn. — See Action.