operant
operant adjective: that operates to produce an effect.
Adjective
operant (comparative more operant, superlative most operant)
- That operates to produce an effect.
- thy most operant poison
- I tell you frankly, if Paul Aubry is guilty I hope is convicted and punished; but if one of the others is guilty I hope he—or she—is punished, and if I knew anything operant to that end I certainly would not withhold it.1955, Rex Stout, "When a Man Murders...", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, page 117
- Synonyms:
- operative
Noun
operant (plural operants)
- An operative person or thing.
- Any of a class of behaviors that produce consequences by operating (i.e., acting) upon the environment.
Synonyms of operant
Antonyms
Forms of operant
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more operant |
| superlative | most operant |
| Noun | |
| plural | operants |
Origin of operant
From Middle English operant, from Latin operāns.
Words formed from operant
Questions about operant
- What does operant mean?
- Operant means that operates to produce an effect.
- What part of speech is operant?
- Operant can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near operant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: operant (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “operant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/operant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.