operate

From Latin operātus, past participle of operārī (“to work, labor, toil, have effect”), from opus, operis (“work, labor”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒpəɹeɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑpəɹeɪt/

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• Rhymes: -ɒpəɹeɪt
• Hyphenation: op‧er‧ate

operate (third-person singular simple present operates, present participle operating, simple past and past participle operated)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To perform a work or labour; to exert power or strength, physical or mechanical; to act.

   Could someone explain how this meeting operates?

   In this town, the garbage removal staff operate between six o'clock at midnight.

   The police had inside knowledge of how the gang operated.

2. (intransitive) To produce an effect.
   • 2012 January, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 23:

     We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.

   1. (intransitive) To produce an appropriate physical effect; to issue in the result designed by nature; especially (medicine) to take appropriate effect on the human system.
      • 2010, Peter A. Frensch, Ralf Schwarzer, Cognition and Neuropsychology:

        The drug operates by facilitating the negative neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), resulting in the blocking of neural long-term potentiation.

   2. (intransitive) To act or produce an effect on the mind; to exert moral power or influence.
      • 1706 September 19 (Gregorian calendar), Francis Atterbury, “A Sermon Preach’d in the Guild-Hall Chapel, London, Sept. 28. 1706. Being the Day of the Election of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor.”, in Fourteen Sermons Preach’d on Several Occasions. […], London: […] E. P. [Edmund Parker?] for Jonah Bowyer, […], published 1708, →OCLC, page 405:

        The Virtues of private Perſons, how Bright and Exemplary ſoever, operate but on Few; on thoſe only who are near enough to obſerve, and inclin'd to imitate them: their ſphere of Action is narrow, and their Influence is confin'd to it.

      • 1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman:

        A plain, convincing reason operates on the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live.

3. (transitive) To bring about as an effect; to cause.
   • 1830 March 24, Charles Francis Adams Sr., Massachusetts Historical Society: Adams Papers Digital Edition‎^[1], archived from the original on 2022-08-11, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3:

     Strictures upon style, which are for the most part good, but time has operated a change in many respects even since he wrote.

   • 1906, William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals‎^[2], Boston: Ginn and Co., archived from the original on 2024-05-02, page 212:

     It is supposed that western Europe was overpopulated and that the crusades operated a beneficial reduction of numbers.

4. (medicine, transitive or intransitive) To perform some manual act upon a human body in a methodical manner, and usually with instruments, with a view to restore soundness or health, as in amputation, lithotomy, etc.

   The surgeon had to operate on her heart.

   I'm being operated tomorrow.

5. (transitive or intransitive) To deal in stocks or any commodity with a view to speculative profits.
6. (transitive) To put into, or to continue in, operation or activity; to work.

   to operate a machine

   to operate a system

   to operate a casino

   • 2009 June 25, Uchenna Izundu, “Total, Novatek to develop Termokarstovoye gas field”, in Oil & Gas Journal‎^[3], archived from the original on 2024-05-17:

     Termokarstovoye is 250 km east of Tarkosale where Novatek operates a processing facility for its own onshore production.

   • 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:

     Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

• “operate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “operate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

operate pl

1. plural of operata

operate

1. inflection of operare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative
   3. feminine plural past participle

• poetare, poeterà

operāte

1. vocative masculine singular of operātus

operate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of operar combined with te