act up

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act up

1. Of a person, to behave poorly or inappropriately. If you act up in class, you will be sent to the principal's office.

2. Of a thing, to malfunction or operate incorrectly. My car's transmission started acting up during my commute to work. My phone acted up again this morning; I think I need to take it to a professional.

3. Of a medical condition, to become problematic or troublesome, usually after a period of remission. Jake played football with his friends today, and now his old knee injury is acting up. It's springtime, so of course my allergies are acting up again.

See also: act, up

act up

[for a thing or a person] to behave badly. This car is acting up again.

See also: act, up

act up

1. Misbehave. For example, With an inexperienced rider, this horse always acts up. [c. 1900]

2. Malfunction, as in I'm not sure what's wrong with my car, but the transmission is acting up. In both usages up means "abnormally."

See also: act, up

act up

1. To misbehave: The driver stopped the school bus because the kids were acting up.

2. To cause problems by operating strangely or unexpectedly: The thermostat suddenly started acting up, and now it's always too hot or too cold in here.

3. To become active or troublesome after a period of operating normally: My knee starts acting up when the weather is cold.

See also: act, up

References in periodicals archive ?

Tensions between scientists and ACT UP didn't disappear, but they did decrease.

Acting up: a new history of aids activism during the plague years

The impetus for the street theater tactics for which ACT UP would become known originated in two spheres committed to social justice: public protest and traditional theater.

On March 24, 1987, ACT UP hit the streets with a demonstration wherein approximately 250 activists sat down in the middle of traffic on Wall Street and hanged an effigy of Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Frank Young in front of Trinity Church in order to "protest against drug-company profiteering from the exorbitantly priced AZT" drug.

Bearing witness and taking action: audiences and morality in renaissance tragedy and activist street theater

Sixteen months later when the United States went to war in the Gulf, ACT UP seized and closed the Golden Gate Bridge, spurring a militant war resistance movement in the San Francisco Bay Area that christened a new generation of peace-with-justice activists.

Until I encountered ACT UP in 1989, I truly never imagined that a joyful, life-affirming movement could be born of such darkness and death, but ACT UP was such a movement.

Don't mourn, organize: Joe Hill's children. (Book Review)

Through Health GAP and GTAC, ACT UP has built alliances within the antiglobalization movement.

Although these statements now come with a racist vision of Africa as the dark continent, in a sense they're nothing new to ACT UP members, many of whom recall similar statements made years ago when official AIDS policy was to hammer home the message of safe sex while ignoring treatment.

ACT UP Goes Global : AN EARLY US AIDS GROUP EMPLOYS DIRECT ACTION TO OPPOSE INJUSTICE EVERYWHERE

They seem to believe that Gran Fury was a group of artists who contributed to AIDS activism or to ACT UP, but in fact it's the other way around.

The enthusiasm with which we had approached what we were doing in the early years of ACT UP couldn't be sustained, because death was taking too great a toll.

Gran Fury talks to Douglas Crimp. ('80s Then)

ACT UP at its height, between 1988 and 1991, was an extraordinarily diverse group.

Early on ACT UP adopted Robert's Rules of Order for its procedures.

My Postmodernism. (My '80s)

ACT UP was founded in New York City in 1987 by novelist and playwright Larry Kramer.

Somewhere along the way, though, ACT UP lost its political and sexual edge.

still angry after all these years

But my unease also comes from an awareness that the contradictions that drove ACT UP forward and eventually splintered it still rend our movement today.

ACT UP was driven by the pressure of survival to adopt an ends-justify-the-means mentality.