"in the act" meaning in English

See in the act in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: en-au-in the act.ogg
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase}} in the act
  1. (idiomatic) In the process of doing something considered criminal or otherwise wrong; used to emphasize the eye-witness evidence. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: red-handed, in flagrante delicto Translations (in the process of doing something): 現行 (Chinese Mandarin), 现行 (xiànxíng) (Chinese Mandarin), på fersk gerning (Danish), op heterdaad (Dutch), itse teossa (Finnish), sur le fait (French), auf frischer Tat (German), på fersk gjerning (Norwegian), na gorącym uczynku (Polish), на ме́сте преступле́ния (na méste prestuplénija) (Russian), с поли́чным (s políčnym) (Russian), con las manos en la masa (Spanish), på bar gärning (Swedish), huli sa akto (Tagalog)
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She denied it but she had been spotted in the act.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "He was caught in the act in the store after hours.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "He was caught in the act of climbing out the window.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In the process of doing something considered criminal or otherwise wrong; used to emphasize the eye-witness evidence."
      ],
      "id": "en-in_the_act-en-prep_phrase-OoUXFGFh",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) In the process of doing something considered criminal or otherwise wrong; used to emphasize the eye-witness evidence."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "red-handed"
        },
        {
          "word": "in flagrante delicto"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "現行"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "xiànxíng",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "现行"
        },
        {
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "på fersk gerning"
        },
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "op heterdaad"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "itse teossa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "sur le fait"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "auf frischer Tat"
        },
        {
          "code": "no",
          "lang": "Norwegian",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "på fersk gjerning"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "na gorącym uczynku"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "na méste prestuplénija",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "на ме́сте преступле́ния"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "s políčnym",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "с поли́чным"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "con las manos en la masa"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "på bar gärning"
        },
        {
          "code": "tl",
          "lang": "Tagalog",
          "sense": "in the process of doing something",
          "word": "huli sa akto"
        }
      ]
    }
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      "audio": "en-au-in the act.ogg",
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  "word": "in the act"
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  "lang_code": "en",
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        {
          "text": "She denied it but she had been spotted in the act.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "He was caught in the act in the store after hours.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "He was caught in the act of climbing out the window.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In the process of doing something considered criminal or otherwise wrong; used to emphasize the eye-witness evidence."
      ],
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        "(idiomatic) In the process of doing something considered criminal or otherwise wrong; used to emphasize the eye-witness evidence."
      ],
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        "idiomatic"
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "red-handed"
    },
    {
      "word": "in flagrante delicto"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "現行"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "xiànxíng",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "现行"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "på fersk gerning"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "op heterdaad"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "itse teossa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "sur le fait"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "auf frischer Tat"
    },
    {
      "code": "no",
      "lang": "Norwegian",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "på fersk gjerning"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "na gorącym uczynku"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "na méste prestuplénija",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "на ме́сте преступле́ния"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "s políčnym",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "с поли́чным"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "con las manos en la masa"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "på bar gärning"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "in the process of doing something",
      "word": "huli sa akto"
    }
  ],
  "word": "in the act"
}

Download raw JSONL data for in the act meaning in English (3.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.