Etimology
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.
noun
operation (countable and uncountable, plural operations)
The method by which a device performs its function.
The method or practice by which actions are done.
The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.
A planned undertaking.
A business or organization.
(medicine) A surgical procedure.
(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.
Examples
It is dangerous to look at the beam of a laser while it is in operation.
the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts.
Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection.
The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets.
The Katrina relief operation was considered botched.
We run our operation from a storefront.
They run a multinational produce-supply operation.
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 fatted in a Coup, which is commonly done from Chriſtmas to Candlemas, and after.
The number of operands associated with an operation is called its arity; an operation of arity 2 is called a binary operation.
The bards […] had great operation on the vulgar.The spelling has been modernized.
The spelling has been modernized.
Related words
synonyms
(mathematics): function, transformation
related terms
opera
operable
operand
operant
operate
operational
operative
operator
opus