How to Use direct action in a Sentence

direct action

noun
  • When the project stalled, my office took direct action.
    — Mercury News Editorial Board, Mercury News, 29 May 2026
  • Very little is asked of the reader in terms of direct action.
    — Colin Dickey, The New Republic, 7 Aug. 2020
  • If there were evidence of that, that would - that would lead to direct action.
    — CBS News, 26 May 2024
  • They were asked to direct action as if they were seated courtside at an actual game.
    — oregonlive, 10 Jan. 2020
  • In order for direct action to succeed and be sustainable, all those pieces need to be in place.
    — refinery29.com, 29 May 2020
  • Some faiths proscribe taking direct action that could cause the death of the unborn child or the mother.
    — Martin Shenkman, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024
  • What would distract us from taking direct action on a comet that’s going to destroy most life on earth?
    — Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 13 Dec. 2021
  • Dibee also told Aiken then that direct action and protests don’t really work.
    — oregonlive, 21 Apr. 2022
  • Employees and leaders alike should take direct action to help ease these pressures.
    — Dena Trujillo, Forbes, 26 Sep. 2024
  • For instance, fever is something that’s driven by your body fighting the virus, not by direct action of the virus.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 16 Apr. 2020
  • The private sector can both take direct action and be the driving force to push governments to step up.
    — Mark Dybul and serhat Gümrükçü, Fortune, 1 Dec. 2021
  • Several replies praised the user for taking such direct action against someone who was rude to them.
    — Charlotte Phillipp, People.com, 27 Dec. 2024
  • James’s run is all about taking direct action to address his frustration with the status quo.
    — Lucy Diavolo, Teen Vogue, 21 Feb. 2020
  • All of it was evasion, an instinctive turning away from direct action on the things that matter.
    — Rosa Lyster, Harpers Magazine, 30 Dec. 2025
  • To defend, conserve and protect the world’s oceans using direct action.
    — Liam Freeman, Vogue, 2 June 2021
  • However, calls for more direct action from the government have yet to be answered.
    — Richard Windsor, The Week Uk, theweek, 5 Dec. 2024
  • Folks are running out of patience with the pace of nonviolent direct action.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2023
  • Some of those conversations have led to direct action from the football program.
    — Cameron Teague Robinson, The Courier-Journal, 8 June 2020
  • The Fed won’t take any direct action based on the results released Thursday.
    — Telis Demos, WSJ, 21 June 2018
  • Of course, books cannot replace concrete direct action with a measurable impact.
    — Literary Hub, 26 Feb. 2026
  • But the limited test may not lead to any direct action on the tweets flagged by users, according to the company.
    — Brian Fung, CNN, 17 Aug. 2021
  • Amazon would have no legal options to stop the large-scale worker direct action that would grind the company to a halt.
    — Tom Rogers, Newsweek, 26 Nov. 2024
  • But Russia has taken no direct action to support its ally.
    — CBS News, 14 Mar. 2026
  • These videos, which are often posted from multiple angles, feel like direct action.
    — Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 19 Dec. 2025
  • But Crow said the philosophy of Antifa is based on the idea of direct action.
    — Jessica Suerth and Leah Asmelash, CNN, 2 July 2019
  • The death of Judge Miller, in 1851, freed Frances to take direct action.
    — Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker, 18 Jan. 2021
  • Just Stop Oil is not the first climate group to declare an end to disruptive direct action.
    — Catherine Nicholls, CNN Money, 27 Mar. 2025
  • It should be said that direct action will be just as important if Democrats don’t take the Senate or if Trump wins.
    — Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, 21 Aug. 2020
  • On Monday, Vladimir Putin moved on from diplomacy to direct action.
    — Daniel Treisman, CNN, 22 Feb. 2022
  • In the event of an emergency, the school’s public safety professionals would take direct action, which is always the case.
    — Julie Carr Smyth, Chicago Tribune, 9 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'direct action.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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