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operator

noun
/ˈɒpəˌɹeɪtə/UK/ˈɑpəˌɹeɪtɚ/US

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin operātor, from operor (“work, labour”). Equivalent to operate + -or.

  1. borrowed from operātor

Definitions

  1. A person or organisation that operates a device, system, service, etc.

    • The drone crashed because of operator error.
    • The new bus operator has promised to improve the frequency of rural services.

  2. A telecommunications facilitator whose job is to connect or otherwise assist callers.

    • To get an international line, you used to have to go through the operator.
    • I kept getting "number unobtainable", so I called the operator to find out what was going on.

  3. A member of a military special operations unit.

  4. ›+ 12 more definitions

    1. A surgeon

      A surgeon; one who performs medical operations.

      • Oh, a very well-known man. He has a great reputation as an operator for peritonitis.

    2. The game of Chinese whispers.

    3. A person who is adept at making deals or getting results, especially one who uses…

      A person who is adept at making deals or getting results, especially one who uses questionable methods.

      • Francis Urquhart: I think Lord Billsborough is starting to lose touch a bit. Tim Stamper: Shame. Used to be a hell of an operator in his day.

    4. A function or other mapping that carries values defined on a domain into another value or…

      A function or other mapping that carries values defined on a domain into another value or set of values in a defined range.

    5. The administrator of a channel or network on IRC.

    6. A symbol that represents a construct in a programming language and differs from a normal…

      A symbol that represents a construct in a programming language and differs from a normal function in its syntax.

    7. A kind of expression that enters into an a-bar movement dependency and is said to bind a…

      A kind of expression that enters into an a-bar movement dependency and is said to bind a variable.

      • In the sentence "What did Bill say he wants to buy?", "what" is an operator, binding a phonetically empty variable.

    8. A bus driver.

    9. The company that operates a mine

      The company that operates a mine; often the same one that owns the mine.

    10. A thief or charlatan.

      • Hank was saying, "Lyssa showed me the screenshots of Nate's accounts, so we know he's helping himself to Nate's money every month. The guy's a real operator."

    11. A major criminal.

      • The second thing is that smart operators like Cocky are only in it for the (huge amounts of) money.

    12. Someone who is successful at pursuing women

      Someone who is successful at pursuing women; a player.

      • Anyway, there's gonna be plenty of girls. Plenty of girls for an operator like you.

The neighborhood

Derived

cooperator, eigenoperator, hyperoperator, interoperator, intraoperator, metaoperator, nonoperator, operatorial, operatorless, operatorship, operator theory, operatress, operon, stoperator, superoperator, sysop, teleoperator

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at operator. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01operator02operations03combination04numbers05moses06led07somebody's08hub09educational

A definitional loop anchored at operator. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at operator

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA