"I have heard that the Scots are good men of war," said Hordle John. "For axemen and for spearmen I have not seen their match," the archer answered. […] "And the French?" asked Alleyne, to whom the archer's light gossip had all the relish that the words of the man of action have for the recluse.

The third was a man of action, a combatant, a bold and impatient executive, breathing fire and steel.

The world found out last week who led the daring, destructive noonday air raid on Japan last month[:] […] pugnacious Brigadier General James Harold Doolittle, 45, speed flyer, engineer, scholar and man of action.

Patrick Leigh Fermor […] was a man of letters but also, like his hero Byron, a man of action—a war hero and a restless adventurer, who even swam the Hellespont when he was 69.

Man of action

Meaning

Noun

Synonyms