operation
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle French operation, from Old French operacion, from Latin operātiō, from the verb operor (“I work”), from opus, operis (“work”).
PronunciationEdit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌɒpəˈɹeɪʃən/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˌɑpəˈɹeɪʃən/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪʃən
- Hyphenation: op‧e‧ra‧tion
NounEdit
operation (countable and uncountable, plural operations)
- 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.
- The method or practice by which actions are done.
- The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.
- John Locke
- The pain and sickness caused by manna are the effects of its operation on the stomach.
- Dryden
- Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection.
- John Locke
- A planned undertaking.
- The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets.
- The Katrina relief operation was considered botched.
- A business or organization.
- We run our operation from a storefront.
- They run a multinational produce-supply operation.
- (medicine) A surgical procedure.
- She had an operation to remove her appendix.
- (computing, logic, mathematics) a procedure for generating a value from one or more other values (the operands).
- (military) A military campaign (e.g. Operation Desert Storm)
- (obsolete) Effect produced; influence.
- Fuller
- The bards […] had great operation on the vulgar.
- Fuller
SynonymsEdit
- (mathematics): function, transformation
HyponymsEdit
- logical operation
- short-circuit logical operation
- (business or organization): mission operations
Derived termsEdit
Terms derived from operation
TranslationsEdit
method by which a device performs its function
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method or practice by which actions are done
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surgical procedure
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procedure for generating a value from one or more other values
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military campaign
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ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- operation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- operation in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
AnagramsEdit
Middle FrenchEdit
NounEdit
operation f (plural operations)
- function; role
- 1595, Michel de Montaigne, Essais:
- C'est tesmoignage de crudité et indigestion que de regorger la viande comme on l'a avallée. L'estomac n'a pas faict son operation, s'il n'a faict changer la façon et la forme a ce qu'on luy avoit donné à cuire.
- It's testament of rawness and indigestion when one regurgitates meat in the same state as one swallowed it. The stomach hasn't done its function if it hasn't change the shape and the form of what one has given it to cook.
- C'est tesmoignage de crudité et indigestion que de regorger la viande comme on l'a avallée. L'estomac n'a pas faict son operation, s'il n'a faict changer la façon et la forme a ce qu'on luy avoit donné à cuire.