operate

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   perform surgery on

   The doctors operated on the patient.

2. 2
   verb

   handle and cause to function

   do not operate machinery after imbibing alcohol

3. 3
   verb

   To perform a work or labour; to exert power or strength, physical or mechanical; to act.

   Could someone explain how this meeting operates?

4. 4
   verb

   To produce an effect.

   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.

5. 5
   verb

   To bring about as an effect; to cause.

   Strictures upon style, which are for the most part good, but time has operated a change in many respects even since he wrote.

6. 6
   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.

   The surgeon had to operate on her heart.

7. 7
   verb

   To put into, or to continue in, operation or activity; to work.

   to operate a machine

8. 8
   verb

   happen

Etymology

From Latin operātus, perfect passive participle of operor (“to work, labor, toil, have effect”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).