operate

Verb

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

1. (intransitive, transitive) 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.
2. (intransitive) To produce an effect.
   • 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.2012 January, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 23
   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.
      • The drug operates by facilitating the negative neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), resulting in the blocking of neural long-term potentiation.2010, Peter A. Frensch, Ralf Schwarzer, Cognition and Neuropsychology
   2. (intransitive) To act or produce an effect on the mind; to exert moral power or influence.
      • 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.1706 September 18 (date delivered; 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...
      • A plain, convincing reason operates on the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live.1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman
3. (transitive) To bring about as an effect; to cause.
   • Strictures upon style, which are for the most part good, but time has operated a change in many respects even since he wrote.1830 March 24, Charles Francis Adams Sr., Massachusetts Historical Society: Adams Papers Digital Edition, archived from the original on 11 Aug 2022, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
   • It is supposed that western Europe was overpopulated and that the crusades operated a beneficial reduction of numbers.1906, William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals, Boston: Ginn and Co., archived from the original on 02 May 2024, page 212
4. (intransitive, transitive) 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. (intransitive, transitive) 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