operate
/ˈɑpəɹeɪt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.50 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To perform a work or labour; to exert power or strength, physical or mechanical; to act.
Intransitive verb; Transitive verb
verb
To perform some manual act upon a human body in a methodical manner, and usually with instruments, with a view to restore soundness or health, as in amputation, lithotomy, etc.
Intransitive verb; Transitive verb
verb
To deal in stocks or any commodity with a view to speculative profits.
Intransitive verb; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Could someone explain how this meeting operates?"
- "In this town, the garbage removal staff operate between six o'clock at midnight."
- "The police had inside knowledge of how the gang operated."
- "We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year."
- "The drug operates by facilitating the negative neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), resulting in the blocking of neural long-term potentiation."
- "The Virtues of private Perſons, how Bright and Exemplary ſoever, operate but on Few; on thoſe only who are near enough to obſerve, and inclin'd to imitate them: their ſphere of Action is narrow, and their Influence is confin'd to it."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃épos Proto-Italic *opos Latin opus Latin opera Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Latin operātusder. English operate From Latin operātus, perfect passive participle of operor (“to work, labor, toil, have effect”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *h₃ep-, operātus
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɑpəɹeɪt/
- British English: /ˈɒpəɹeɪt/