act

an act of goodwill

The seeds of plants are not at first in act, but in possibility, what they afterward grow to be.

But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.

He was caught in the act of stealing.

“H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what … will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”

Which act did you prefer? The soloist or the band?

The minute you let it be known you're planning a sales campaign everybody wants to get into the act.

to put on an act