(operates, operating, operated)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
If you operate a business or organization, you work to keep it running properly. If a business or organization operates, it carries out its work.
Until his death in 1986 Greenwood owned and operated an enormous pear orchard.
...allowing commercial banks to operate in the country...
Operating costs jumped from ?85.3m to ?95m.
VERB: V n, V, V-ing
• operation
Company finance is to provide funds for the everyday operation of the business.
N-UNCOUNT
2.
The way that something operates is the way that it works or has a particular effect.
Ceiling and wall lights can operate independently...
The world of work doesn't operate that way.
VERB: V adv/prep, V n
• operation
Why is it the case that taking part-time work is made so difficult by the operation of the benefit system?
N-UNCOUNT: oft N of n
3.
When you operate a machine or device, or when it operates, you make it work.
A massive rock fall trapped the men as they operated a tunnelling machine...
The number of fax machines operating around the world has now reached ten million.
VERB: V n, V
• operation
...over 1,000 dials monitoring every aspect of the operation of the aeroplane.
N-UNCOUNT
4.
When surgeons operate on a patient in a hospital, they cut open a patient's body in order to remove, replace, or repair a diseased or damaged part.
The surgeon who operated on the King released new details of his injuries...
You examine a patient and then you decide whether or not to operate.
VERB: V on n, V
5.
If military forces are operating in a particular region, they are in that place in order to carry out their orders.
Up to ten thousand Zimbabwean soldiers are operating in Mozambique...
VERB: V prep