ENACT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does enact mean? 

• ENACT (verb)
  The verb ENACT has 2 senses:

1. order by virtue of superior authority; decree

2. act out; represent or perform as if in a play

  Familiarity information: ENACT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ENACT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they enact    ... he / she / it enacts   
Past simple: enacted   
Past participle: enacted   
-ing form: enacting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Order by virtue of superior authority; decree

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

enact; ordain

Context example:

the legislature enacted this law in 1985

Hypernyms (to "enact" is one way to...):

decree (issue a decree)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "enact"):

reenact (enact again)

legislate; pass (make laws, bills, etc. or bring into effect by legislation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

enactment (the passing of a law by a legislative body)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Act out; represent or perform as if in a play

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

act out; enact; reenact

Context example:

She reenacted what had happened earlier that day

Hypernyms (to "enact" is one way to...):

act; play; represent (play a role or part)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

enactment (acting the part of a character on stage; dramatically representing the character by speech and action and gesture)

 Context examples 

Without the consent of this illustrious body, no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered: and these nobles have likewise the decision of all our possessions, without appeal.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Beth played her gayest march, Amy threw open the door, and Meg enacted escort with great dignity.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

For the first time I began to divine that something terrible was about to be enacted,—what, I could not imagine.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Public Law 104-91, enacted in 1996, is designed to protect health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs.

(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, NCI Thesaurus)

Here is one of the three men whom we had named as possible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during the very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the distance, and how I believed all the adventures of all my favourite heroes to be constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I vaguely made it out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the cities of the earth, I need not stop here to relate.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The lawn was the reception room, and for several minutes a lively scene was enacted there.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I could heartily wish a law was enacted, that every traveller, before he were permitted to publish his voyages, should be obliged to make oath before the Lord High Chancellor, that all he intended to print was absolutely true to the best of his knowledge; for then the world would no longer be deceived, as it usually is, while some writers, to make their works pass the better upon the public, impose the grossest falsities on the unwary reader.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Every now and then, by an effort, he would throw off the impression, and talk as if the matter were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had gone back once more to the great dining-room of the Abbey Grange, in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I could not but agree, that the laws of this kingdom relative to the struldbrugs were founded upon the strongest reasons, and such as any other country would be under the necessity of enacting, in the like circumstances.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)