Word.ws English Dictionary

operative words

operative words is the plural of operative word.

Meaning of operative word

Noun

operative word (plural operative words)

  1. The key word in a sentence.
    • Planes crash rarely, but for the media the operative word is "crash".

Questions about operative words

What is operative words the plural of?
Operative words is the plural of operative word.

Words near operative words in the dictionary

  1. operative
  2. operative clause
  3. operative clauses
  4. Operative Masonry
  5. operative word
  6. operative words
  7. operatively
  8. operativeness
  9. operativenesses
  10. operatives
  11. operativity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: operative words (page history and authors); operative word (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: “operative words.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/operative_words. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.