Definition of "operation" in English

noun

1. (uncountable) 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. (uncountable) The method or practice by which actions are done.

3. (uncountable) The act or process of operating (verb): agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.

4. (countable) A planned undertaking.

   • The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets.
   • The Katrina relief operation was considered botched.

5. (countable) A business or organization.

   • We run our operation from a storefront.
   • They run a multinational produce-supply operation.

6. (countable, medicine) A surgical procedure.

   • She had an operation to remove her appendix.

7. (computing, logic, mathematics, countable) 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.

8. (military, countable) A military campaign (e.g. Operation Desert Storm).

9. (obsolete, countable) Effect produced; influence.