| operation | |
| 1. n. 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. n. The method or practice by which actions are done. | |
| 3. n. The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral. | |
| 4. n. A planned undertaking. | |
| The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets. | |
| The Katrina relief operation was considered botched. | |
| 5. n. A business or organization. | |
| We run our operation from a storefront. | |
| They run a multinational produce-supply operation. | |
| 6. n. (medicine) A surgical procedure. | |
| She had an operation to remove her appendix. | |
| 7. n. (computing, logic, mathematics) a procedure for generating a value from one or more other values (the operands). | |
| 8. n. (military) A military campaign (e.g. Operation Desert Storm) | |
| 9. n. (obsolete) Effect produced; influence. | |
