Word family noun act action ≠ inaction activity ≠ inactivity reaction interaction overacting adjective acting active ≠ inactive verb act ≠ overact adverb actively
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishinactionin‧ac‧tion /ɪnˈækʃən/ noun [uncountable] NOT DO somethingthe fact that someone is not doing anything Several newspapers have criticized the president for inaction.Examples from the Corpus
inaction• In this case, inaction is bad news for wage earners.• The Treasury postpones a key sale of notes, citing Congressional inaction on lifting the debt limit.• They waited there, in Berwick, in a strange state of enforced inaction and suspense.• Satellite television stations under the control of press barons and modelled on the tabloid press may make inaction even more indefensible.• The forfeiture of self-created lobbies is perhaps the major reason for political inaction.• Continued pollution of the lake shows the state government's inaction.• Such inaction provides an ideal foil which leaves their assumed image of heterosexuality intact.• Whatever the cause, the inaction that results is costly.• It induces nausea and thereby inaction, since nothing can be done to affect the essential condition: action requires illusion. 