act out

1. 1.

   represent an incident, state, or emotion by action, especially on stage

   “She could act neurotic anxiety”

   Broaderact
2. 2.

   act out; represent or perform as if in a play

   “She reenacted what had happened earlier that day”

   Synonymsenactreenact

   Broaderact

Questions about act out

What does act out mean?

act out means "represent an incident, state, or emotion by action, especially on stage". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for act out?

Close synonyms include enact, reenact. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is act out a common word?

act out is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.