acting

Etymology

From the verb act.

adj

1. Temporarily assuming the duties or authority of another person when they are unable to do their job.
   The Acting Minister must sign Executive Council documents in a Minister's absence.
   The CEO is currently in a hospital. The CFO is acting CEO in the meantime.

verb

1. present participle and gerund of act

noun

1. (countable, now rare) An action or deed.
   […] he does so much magnifie Nature and her Actings in all this material World, as he gives just cause of suspicion that he hath made her a kind of joynt Deess with God in the Affairs thereof; 1685, Herbert Croft, Some Animadversions upon a book intituled, The Theory of the Earth, London, Preface
   […] I desire this Account may pass with them, rather for a Direction to themselves to act by, than a History of my actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me. 1722, Daniel Defoe, “A Journal of the Plague Year”, in et al., London: E. Nutt, page 10
   Boyle’s theory explains the whole range of God’s actings in the world, those things that injure man as well as those which advantage him. 1974, J. R. Jacob, “Robert Boyle and Subversive Religion in the Early Restoration”, in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, volume 6, number 4, →JSTOR, page 276
2. (countable, law) Something done by a party—so called to avoid confusion with the legal senses of deed and action.
3. (uncountable) Pretending.
4. (uncountable, drama) The occupation of an actor.