How to Use act out in a Sentence

act out

verb
  • The only thing left to do is act out.
    — Literary Hub, 9 June 2026
  • Take your rage, and paint/draw/paste/act out/write/sing/film it.
    — The Washington Post, 31 July 2020
  • And if there are no nouns, then what is acting out the verbs?
    — George Musser, Scientific American, 25 Aug. 2019
  • Read on to find out why your child may be acting out, and when to seek help.
    — Melissa Willets, Parents, 5 Feb. 2026
  • Lizzy yells at him for acting out because of his bruised ego.
    — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 9 July 2025
  • One of us would always act out if cheating was against the rules.
    — Anna Davies, Redbook, 3 Mar. 2017
  • The adults in charge ignored my acting out, for the most part.
    — Danielle Tcholakian, Longreads, 5 Oct. 2017
  • So if your dog is acting out, start by trying to find the root cause.
    — Alexandra Gekas, Woman's Day, 25 Feb. 2019
  • Hsu had been chosen to act out a fake lemonade ad in front of her school.
    — CNN, 6 Mar. 2023
  • For you as a parent in real life, what were those scenes like to act out?
    — Karen Mizoguchi, PEOPLE.com, 5 Apr. 2022
  • Some embrace the chance to act out while others just want to party.
    — Chris Thilk, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 July 2018
  • The game involves guessing words that are acted out one by one to form a phrase.
    — USA TODAY, 17 July 2023
  • In the video, the band don breastplates and gold leaf crowns to act out Shakespeare.
    — Audra Heinrichs, Rolling Stone, 21 Mar. 2024
  • So the kids write their term papers and throw their tame ragers, while the parents claim the right to act out.
    — Ben Falcone, New York Times, 10 May 2018
  • At one point, Scott acts out holding back an eager dog that wants to get to its bowl.
    — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2025
  • Don’t act out, don’t huff and puff over the indignity of it all — just be busy that day.
    — Amy Dickinson, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2022
  • What did this change for you when acting out Pit Girl in finale?
    — Jackie Strause, HollywoodReporter, 15 Apr. 2025
  • Don’t act out, don’t huff and puff over the indignity of it all – just, be busy that day.
    — Amy Dickinson, Chicago Tribune, 18 Nov. 2022
  • The Kinahans seemed to be acting out of pure rage.
    — Ed Caesar, New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2025
  • The mayor may have been acting out of an abundance of caution.
    — Jessica Boehm, azcentral, 17 July 2019
  • The cost of acting out of sync with your values isn’t just ethical.
    — Nell Derick Debevoise, Forbes.com, 30 June 2025
  • Ask your kid to keep quiet but to use their face, their body and their movements to act out an emotion.
    — Erica Pearson, Star Tribune, 1 Dec. 2020
  • If sung through onstage, the singer would have to act out a complete narrative.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 12 June 2026
  • There are also stud shooters for kids who want to get hands-on with acting out an epic battle.
    — Kim Snaith, Space.com, 16 Feb. 2026
  • Still, Jaymes acted out at home and at school, and continued to do so for years.
    — Popular Science, 10 Mar. 2020
  • The first game was charades, where the audience had to act out the word for Jin to guess.
    — Laura Sirikul, Forbes.com, 19 July 2025
  • Part of her was acting out, but one side of her was like, ‘Will this help connect me to my mom’?
    — Jackie Strause, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Mar. 2025
  • The whole point is to for people not to be influenced, but instead to act out of their own free will.
    — The Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2020
  • But what seems to happen is there’s a trigger, a loss of some type, which begins the acting out.
    — Alaa Elassar, CNN, 24 July 2023
  • That will lead us to act out of alignment with our values and what’s best for ourselves and those who would be our clients.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes, 28 Apr. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'act out.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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