act up

“When Zoe came to reflect calmly on the occurrences of the theatre night, she was piqued at the tameness with which she had allowed herself to be domineered over by a man whom she had as yet hardly accepted for a lover; she determined that the next time he came, she would assert her own dignity, and act up to her old maxim, that "no man can stand being treated too well".”

Zoe: The History of Two Lives

“But with phenothiazines, even they don’t act up much—better living through chemistry, right?”

Simon & Schuster: Over the Edge

“I eyed that bitch, never forgetting how shiesty she used to act up in Dino’s and when I first started working with her.”

Simon & Schuster: Real wifeys

“Lord Hardwicke, as might have been expected, was among those 'men of metal and large acred squires,' as Disraeli called them, 'the flower of that great party which had been so proud to follow one who had been so proud to lead them, whose loyalty was too severely tried by the conversion of their chief to the doctrines of Manchester,' and early in February he wrote to Sir Robert to resign his post as Lord-in-Waiting, on the ground that as he could not support the measures of the Government and act up to his own opinion, he thought it not respectful to her Majesty to oppose her minister and hold an office in her household.”

Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N.

“You knew better than to act up in Miss Hargraves, you knew not to act up in the cafeteria if Miss Hargraves saw you, she'd put that ruler across your head, no matter whose class you was in.”

Oral History Interview with Thurman Couch, February 12, 2001. Interview K-0537. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

“Miss Macnulty did not believe in Lady Eustace, and was not sufficiently gifted to act up to a belief which she did not entertain.”

The Eustace Diamonds