1. second act - Noun
2. second act - Verb
second act (plural second acts)
Something a person devotes their later life to, after retiring or quitting a former occupation.
After a successful career as a Wall Street stockbroker, Don built houses in Africa for a second act.
second-act (third-person singular simple present second-acts, present participle second-acting, simple past and past participle second-acted)
To sneak into a venue during the intermission without paying.
second-act
We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act. William Winwood Reade
Also, if you watch the film once, there are lots of things that you won't get because there are punch lines in the first act, the setup to which isn't until the second act. Simon Pegg
I hate you, I hate you!' cried Madeline, a thing I didn't know anyone ever said except in the second act of a musical comedy. P. G. Wodehouse
During one performance of 'Les Miserables,' the barricade didn't leave the stage, so we had to actually end up finishing the second act with the barricades on the stage, which was very strange... doing the love scene on the barricade. Josh Young
One of the traps or the pitfalls of writing a trilogy - or a triptych, or whatever term you want to use - is that the second book can be a long second act to get you from book one to book three, which borrows all of its energy from the first book. Justin Cronin
You never want your second act or the whole movie to just be this relentless march towards its goal. You want things to take the audience by surprise. Michael Arndt