Language Of Confusion: Acting!, Part I

This will be yet another simple word with a far reaching etymology. Act showed up in the late fourteenth century as a noun and a century later as a verb, and back then it was just a synonym for to do, not meaning to perform until the sixteenth century. It comes from the classical Latin actus, act, from the verb agere, to act, which is from the Proto Indo European root ag-, to drive, draw out, or move. And that of course is the root of so many other things. But today we’ll just look at the act words.
 
Action for example showed up in the mid fourteenth century spelled accioum. It’s from the Anglo French accioun, Old French accion, which is from the classical Latin actionem, so yes, French changed the spelling, and eventually (in the fifteenth century) English changed it back. Anyway, actionem is the noun version of agere, so no big surprises here. Active is very similar, from the Old French actif and Latin activus. Actor was, during the late fourteenth century, taken straight from the Latin version of the word, actually meaning one who does something or an overseer before firmly meaning a performer. Then there’s actual, another from the early fourteenth century, meaning “pertaining to an action” before it meant something that’s real. It’s from the Old French actuel and Late Latin actualis, which of course is from actus.
 
Next we’ll look at all the prefixed versions of the word. Interact isn’t exactly rocket science, though it didn’t show up until 1805. It’s just act plus inter-, which means between, among, or during. Interacting is acting between. Transact showed up in the late sixteenth century, while transaction was actually a century earlier, from the Old French transaccion, Late Latin transactionem, and verb transigere. It’s a mix of the prefix trans-, across or beyond, and agere, so to transact is to drive across. The not often used intransigent is actually also from here, having shown up in 1874 from the Spanish los intransigentes, those not coming to an agreement, which is what they used to call the “extreme republicans of the 1870s” back in Spain. Could also use that today, but I digress. That word is, back in Latin, a mix of the in- prefix, meaning not, and transigere. Intransigent is to not transact.
 
There’s also counteract, which showed up in the late seventeenth century and is just counter and act. Exact showed up in the sixteenth century, from the Latin exactus and its verb form exigere, to demand. With ex- meaning out, to exact is… to act out? And that somehow went from to demand and became precise.
 
And finally today is to redact. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning to combine into unity. Yes, really. It didn’t start to mean to edit out until 1851! It’s from the classical Latin redactus, reduced, from the verb redigere, to redefine or more literally to drive back. The red- prefix is from re- here, meaning back or again, so to redact is to… act again. I guess they threw the D in their to make it distinct from react, which showed up in the mid seventeenth century and was from the French réaction and Medieval Latin reactionem, from the Latin reagere, to react. So redact and react have been two separate words for a long time, despite being made up of the same elements.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus