Enact

How to spell enact

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce enact

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does enact mean?

1. verbTo make a bill or proposal into law through a formal process.
2. verbTo perform or play out a scene, role, or sequence of events.

Enact in a sentence

• Parliament voted to enact the new tax measures this spring.

• The trainees will enact a customer complaint to practise their responses.

• The council will enact stricter parking rules from next month.

• The museum guides enact historical events for visiting school groups.

Where does enact come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This verb was built in English by attaching the prefix en-, meaning 'to make' or 'to bring into a state', to the noun 'act'. That noun traces back to the Latin actus and actum, both from agere, a verb that literally meant 'to drive, to set in motion, to do'. The same agere root spreads widely through English in words like 'agent', 'agile', 'action', and 'agenda', all carrying the underlying idea of doing or driving something forward. 'Enact' appears from the late 1400s, first in the legal sense of making something into a formal act of law, since a bill 'becomes an act' once passed. From there it broadened to mean performing or playing out a scene, as though making an action happen on stage. The simple spelling rarely traps people once you remember it is just 'en' plus the familiar word 'act'.

How the word is built

• en- (to make, bring into)
• act (from Latin actus 'a doing, a deed', via actum 'thing done')