Specific tasks or activities that need to be completed, typically assigned to individuals with deadlines following a meeting or planning session.
Emerged in mid-20th century corporate culture, combining 'action' (something to be done) with 'items' (individual things). The phrase standardized the practice of converting meeting discussions into concrete, assignable tasks.
This phrase transforms the abstract into the concrete - it's the linguistic bridge between talking about work and actually doing work. Interestingly, it's almost always plural, suggesting that meaningful progress requires multiple coordinated efforts rather than single actions.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.