enaction

E1N1A1C3T1I1O1N1

noun

The process of enacting something.

Scrabble 10

Meanings

nounenaction (usually uncountable, plural enactions)

plural enactions

  1. uncountableusuallyThe process of enacting something.

    a wide spectrum of tics and compulsive movements […] which were enactions of sudden urges.

    1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings
    1 more example

    Two important threads of this work are to design a representation formalism for describing software process models and to develop new mechanisms to support the enaction of instantiated software process models.

    1991, Takuya Katayama, Support for the Software Process, page 151
  2. uncountableusuallycognitive sciencecomputerThe interpretation of consciousness or understanding as a process of meaningfully engaging and interacting with the world in a hierarchy of actions that produce reactions.

    An appreciation of the power of enaction in our understandings of the mind will throw into relief the question of motivations and goals.

    2005, Ralph D. Ellis, Natika Newton, Consciousness & Emotion: Agency, conscious choice, and selective perception
    3 more examples

    The processes that underlie the organization and honing of these skills operate over a wide range of timescales, which include the enaction of a particular perceptual act at one end and the lifetime development of perception-action capabilities at the other.

    2017, Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann, Xabier E. Barandiaran, Sensorimotor Life: An Enactive Proposal, page 76

    The first mention of enaction as a history of couplings that bring forth a world referred to the activity of "sensorimotor networks". (Varela et al. 1991)

    2018, Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Elena Clare Cuffari, Hanne De Jaegher, Linguistic Bodies: The Continuity between Life and Language

    Third, drawing on enaction and embodiment gives us the means for considering actions taken in response to musical sounds as sufficient for cognition, and thus constitutive of listeners' musical understanding.

    2019, Mariusz Kozak, Enacting Musical Time: The Bodily Experience of New Music, page 54

Origin

Translations

Spanish enacción
  • enacciónTranslations
Cite this entry
APA

enaction. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/enaction

MLA

“enaction.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/enaction. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “enaction,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/enaction.

Source: enaction on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.