acta

See also: ACTA and actă

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ācta (“register of events”), plural of āctum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈak.tə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈak.ta]
• Homophone: acte

Noun

acta f (plural actes)

1. act (of a parliament)

Further reading

• “acta”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “acta”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026
• “acta” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “acta” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ak.ta/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Homophones: actas, actât

Verb

acta

1. third-person singular past historic of acter

Latin

Pronunciation

• ācta:
  • (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈaːk.ta]
  • (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈak.ta]
• āctā:
  • (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈaːk.taː]
  • (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈak.ta]
• acta:
  • (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈak.ta]
  • (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈak.ta]

Etymology 1

From the verb agō (“make, do”).

Noun

ācta n pl (genitive āctōrum); second declension

1. acts, transactions, or proceedings (e.g., of an organization, in an academic field, of an office holder).
2. journal; register of public events; newspaper.

   Synonym: ephēmeris

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter), plural only.

	plural
nominative	ācta
genitive	āctōrum
dative	āctīs
accusative	ācta
ablative	āctīs
vocative	ācta

Related terms

• āctum

Descendants

• → Catalan: acta
• → English: act
• → Galician: acta
• → German: Akte
• → Indonesian: akta
• → Malay: akta
• → Norwegian Bokmål: akt
• → Portuguese: ata
• → Spanish: acta

Participle

ācta

1. inflection of āctus:
   1. nominative/vocative feminine singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter plural

Participle

āctā

1. ablative feminine singular of āctus

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek ἀκτή (aktḗ).

Noun

acta f (genitive actae); first declension

1. seashore, beach
2. (figuratively, plural only) holiday

Declension

First-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	acta	actae
genitive	actae	actārum
dative	actae	actīs
accusative	actam	actās
ablative	actā	actīs
vocative	acta	actae

References

• “acta”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “acta”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "acta", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “acta”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) I'm undone! it's all up with me: perii! actum est de me! (Ter. Ad. 3. 2. 26)
    
  • (ambiguous) to have all one's trouble for nothing: rem actam or simply actum agere (proverb.)
    
  • (ambiguous) it's all over with me; I'm a lost man: actum est de me
    
  • (ambiguous) a good conscience: conscientia recta, recte facti (factorum), virtutis, bene actae vitae, rectae voluntatis
    
  • (ambiguous) to declare a magistrate's decisions null and void: acta rescindere, dissolvere (Phil. 13. 3. 5)
    
  • (ambiguous) amnesty (ἀμνηρτία): ante actarum (praeteritarum) rerum oblivio or simply oblivio
    
• “acta”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “acta”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Portuguese

Noun

acta f (plural actas)

1. pre-reform spelling (used until 1943 in Brazil and 1990 in Portugal) of ata; still used where the agreement hasn’t come into effect and may occur as a sporadic misspelling

Further reading

• “acta”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Romanian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin acta.

Noun

acta n (uncountable)

1. collection of documents

Declension

singular only	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	acta	actaul
genitive-dative	acta	actaului
vocative	actaule

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ācta (“register of events”), plural of āctum, from agō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈaɡta/ [ˈaɣ̞.t̪a]

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɡta
• Syllabification: ac‧ta

Noun

acta f (plural actas)

1. certificate
2. minutes, record
3. election results

Usage notes

• Before feminine nouns beginning with stressed /ˈa/ like acta, the singular definite article takes the form of el (otherwise reserved for masculine nouns) instead of the usual la: el acta. This includes the contracted forms al and del (instead of a la and de la, respectively): al acta, del acta.

This also applies to the indefinite article, which takes the form of un, which is otherwise used with masculine nouns (although the standard feminine form una also occurs): un acta or una acta. The same is true with determiners algún/alguna and ningún/ninguna, as well as for numerals ending with 1 (e.g., veintiún/veintiuna).

However, if another word intervenes between the article and the noun, the usual feminine singular articles and determiners (la, una etc.) are used: la mejor acta, una buena acta.

• In these cases, el and un are not masculine but feminine, deriving from Latin illa and una, respectively, even though they are identical in form to the corresponding masculine singular articles. Thus, they are allomorphs of the feminine singular articles la and una.
• The use of these allomorphs does not change the gender agreement of the adjectives modifying the feminine noun: el acta única, un(a) acta buena.
• In the plural, the usual feminine plural articles and determiners (las, unas, etc.) are always used.

Further reading

• “acta”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025