operation
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle French operation, from Old French operacion, from Latin operātiō, from the verb operor (“I work”), from opus, operis (“work”). Equivalent to operate + -ion.
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.
- 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 2, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Thomas Basset, […], OCLC 153628242, book I, page 8:
- the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts.
- 1695, John Dryden (translator), Observations on the Art of Painting by Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy
- Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection.
- 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.
- 1655, Thomas Fuller, Church-History of Britain
- The bards […] had great operation on the vulgar.
- 1655, Thomas Fuller, Church-History of Britain
SynonymsEdit
- (mathematics): function, transformation
Derived termsEdit
- additive operation
- arithmetic operation
- binary operation
- black bag operation
- black operation
- co-operation
- cottage food operation
- driver-only operation
- dyadic operation
- floating point operation
- Gigli's operation
- grow operation
- Hartmann's operation
- in operation
- line of operations
- logical operation
- multiplicative operation
- operation of law
- pivot operation
- reoperation
- set operation
- short-circuit logical operation
- unary operation
- unit operation
- (business or organization): mission operations
Related termsEdit
DescendantsEdit
- → Japanese: オペレーション (operēshon)
- → Scottish Gaelic: opairèisean
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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the act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral
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a planned undertaking
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
InterlinguaEdit
NounEdit
operation (plural operationes)
- operation (surgical procedure)
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.