operation

The method by which a device performs its function.

Noun

  1. 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.
  2. The method or practice by which actions are done.
  3. The act or process of operating (verb): agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.
    • the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts. - 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 2, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding....
    • Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection. - 1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London:...

    Synonyms: operating

  4. A planned undertaking.
    • The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets.
    • The Katrina relief operation was considered botched.
  5. A business or organization.
    • We run our operation from a storefront.
    • They run a multinational produce-supply operation.
  6. A surgical procedure.
    • She had an operation to remove her appendix.
    • This done, ſhe performs the very ſame Operation on the other Side of the Cock's Body, and there takes out the other Stone; then ſhe ſtitches up the Wounds, and lets the Fowl go about as at other Times, till the Capon is...
  7. A procedure for generating a value from one or more other values (the operands).
    • The number of operands associated with an operation is called its arity; an operation of arity 2 is called a binary operation.

    Synonyms: function transformation

    1. (mathematics, more formally, countable) A function which maps zero or more (but typically two) operands to a single output value.

      Synonyms: function transformation

  8. A military campaign (e.g. Operation Desert Storm).
  9. Effect produced; influence.
    • The bards […] had great operation on the vulgar. - 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):

Origin

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 *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -or Latin operor Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin operātiōder. Old French operacionbor. Middle English operacioun English operation From Middle English operacioun, from Old French operacion, from Latin operātiō, from the verb operor (“to work”), from opus, operis (“work”). Equivalent to operate + -ion.

Forms

operations

Related

opera operable operand operant operate operational operative operator opus

Derived

additive operation arithmetic operation binary operation black bag operation black operation ClickOps co-operation cottage food operation counteroperation cyberoperation DataOps DevOps DevSecOps disoperation driver-only operation dyadic operation floating point operation floating-point operation Gigli's operation group operation grow operation Hartmann's operation hyperoperation in operation