- something done (usually as opposed to something said); "there were stories of murders and other unnatural actions"
- the state of being active; "his sphere of activity"; "he is out of action"
- legal action: a judicial proceeding brought by one party against another; one party prosecutes another for a wrong done or for protection of a right or for prevention of a wrong
- an act by a government body or supranational organization; "recent federal action undermined the segregationist position"; "the United Nations must have the power to propose and organize action without being hobbled by irrelevant issues"; "the Union action of emancipating Southern slaves"
- military action: a military engagement; "he saw action in Korea"
- natural process: a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings); "the action of natural forces"; "volcanic activity"
- the series of events that form a plot; "his novels always have a lot of action"
- the operating part that transmits power to a mechanism; "the piano had a very stiff action"
- the trait of being active and energetic and forceful; "a man of action"
- institute legal proceedings against; file a suit against; "He was warned that the district attorney would process him"; "She actioned the company for discrimination"
- carry through: put in effect; "carry out a task"; "execute the decision of the people"; "He actioned the operation"
- the most important or interesting work or activity in a specific area or field; "the action is no longer in technology stocks but in municipal bonds"; "gawkers always try to get as close to the action as possible"
Monday, December 3, 2007
action!
some definitions i found online for the word action:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
This may seem like an unmanageably long list of meanings "twisted" into all sorts of circumstances, but if you examine the list more closely, essentially all meanings derive from the first two (something done, the state of being active), or natural process. Since we are concerned here with HUMAN action, we can leave out the last except insofar as human activity might be in some way like natural processes.
"Action" as used to represent specific processes as legal or military actions is merely an abbreviation within a particular field for the special type of of action in that field. "Action" as used in a scientific text on the effects of alkaline substances on fats would not typically represent "a military engagement", but "formation of soap" (which is what happens, roughly speaking, when a base and a fat are combined).
Most "simple" words in English come to bear many auxiliary meanings. Any number of examples can be produced. This is no obstacle to understanding, except insofar as one would be willing to be distracted by the specific variations.
As I have been using the term, "action" should be taken as embracing all of these specific meanings, but itself having no more complicated sense than "something done" or "the state of being active". However, the first sense here should not be taken as identical with "end of action" or "product".
Now, one point of potential difficulty is whether an "action" may properly be said to include, for example "thought" or "emotion". These might be ACTIVE, and therefore "thinking" might be said to be a "state of being active". This, of course, is the basic sense in which I am using the term, because otherwise the interior experiences cannot be included; we are left only with outward expressions of purely hypothetical interior experiences. This may be most strictly correct, but it is a damnably convoluted way of expressing something which is complicated enough.
Post a Comment