Word.ws English Dictionary

operations

Syllables: op·e·ra·tionsUK/ˌɒp.əˈɹeɪ.ʃənz//ˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃənz/

operations is the plural of operation.

Noun

operations

  1. (often, plural, plural-only) Any practically minded combination of business administration, management science, operations research, systems engineering, and industrial engineering.
    • They get the job done, but operations is the area in which they're weakest.
    • The first US service members to die in the conflict between the US and Iran were killed by a direct Iranian strike on a makeshift operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait on Sunday morning local time, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.2026 March 2, Haley Britzky, “No warning, no siren: Six US service members killed in Iranian strike that hit makeshift operations center in Kuwait”, in CNN, archived from the original on 06 Mar 2026
  2. (often, plural, plural-only) The department or interdepartmental team within a company that works on optimizing the company's execution of such things.
    • She works in operations, and her job involves data analysis and business intelligence.
    • The operations center was pregnant with dread.

Meaning of operation

Noun

operation (countable and uncountable, plural operations)

  1. (uncountable) The method by which a device performs its function.
    • It is dangerous to look at the beam of a laser while it is in operation.
  2. (uncountable) The method or practice by which actions are done.
  3. (uncountable) The act or process of operating (verb): agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.
    • the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts.1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 2, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book I, page 8
    Synonyms:
    operating
  4. (countable) A planned undertaking.
    • The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets.
  5. (countable) A business or organization.
    • We run our operation from a storefront.
  6. (countable) A surgical procedure.
    • She had an operation to remove her appendix.

See all 10 meanings of operation

Forms of operations

singularin construction

Phrases with operations

20 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about operations

What does operations mean?
Operations means any practically minded combination of business administration, management science, operations research, systems engineering, and industrial engineering.
What is operations the plural of?
Operations is the plural of operation.
What part of speech is operations?
Operations is a noun.
How do you pronounce operations?
Operations is pronounced /ˌɒp.əˈɹeɪ.ʃənz/ (UK).

Words near operations in the dictionary

  1. operationism
  2. operationisms
  3. operationist
  4. operationistic
  5. operationists
  6. operations
  7. operations manager
  8. operations managers
  9. operations research
  10. operatise
  11. operatised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: operations (page history and authors); operation (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-operations.ogg.

Cite this entry: “operations.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/operations. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.