in the act
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
caught doing something wrong or illegal
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
bị bắt đang làm điều gì đó sai hoặc bất hợp pháp
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: during the action
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The police caught the thief in the act of stealing a car.
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “in the act” mean?
caught doing something wrong or illegal Literally: during the action
Is “in the act” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.