operator
Americannoun
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a person who operates a machine, apparatus, or the like.
a telegraph operator.
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a person who operates a telephone switchboard, especially for a telephone company.
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a person who manages a working or industrial establishment, enterprise, or system.
the operators of a mine.
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a person who trades in securities, especially speculatively or on a large scale.
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a person who performs a surgical operation; a surgeon.
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Mathematics.
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a symbol for expressing a mathematical operation.
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a function, especially one transforming a function, set, etc., into another.
a differential operator.
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Informal.
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a person who accomplishes goals or purposes by devious means; faker; fraud.
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a person who is adroit at overcoming, avoiding, or evading difficulties, regulations, or restrictions.
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a person who is extremely successful with or smoothly persuasive to potential sexual or romantic partners.
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Genetics. a segment of DNA that interacts with a regulatory molecule, preventing transcription of the adjacent region.
noun
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a person who operates a machine, instrument, etc, esp, a person who makes connections on a telephone switchboard or at an exchange
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a person who owns or operates an industrial or commercial establishment
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a speculator, esp one who operates on currency or stock markets
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informal a person who manipulates affairs and other people
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maths any symbol, term, letter, etc, used to indicate or express a specific operation or process, such as Δ (the differential operator)
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Mathematics A function, especially one from a set to itself, such as differentiation of a differentiable function or rotation of a vector. In quantum mechanics, measurable quantities of a physical system, such as position and momentum, are related to unique operators applied to the wave equation describing the system.
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A logical operator.
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Genetics A segment of chromosomal DNA that regulates the activity of the structural genes of an operon by interacting with a specific repressor.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of operator
First recorded in 1590–1600; from Late Latin, equivalent to operā(rī) “to work, effect” ( see operate) + Latin -tor noun suffix ( see -tor)
Explanation
An operator is a person who runs a machine, equipment, or a vehicle. If you want to be a jackhammer operator some day, you might hope to work on a road crew of for a construction company. An operator operates, or controls, something. You could be a radio operator, a heavy machinery operator, or even a telephone operator — or you can be the operator, or manager, of a business. If you start your own dog walking company, you can call yourself an "owner-operator." The Latin root of both operator and operate is operari, "to work," and "to cause."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
India's largest stock exchange and its biggest telecoms operator will both go public by the end of this year in what experts say could be landmark listings for the country's capital markets.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2026
“We have sufficient resources to serve this level of electricity use if the generation fleet and transmission system perform as expected,” the grid operator said In a statement.
From Barron's • Jun. 30, 2026
Kennedy Wilson is a nationwide operator of market-rate apartments that has also moved into building affordable housing in the last decade, said Nicholas Bridges, global head of capital markets at the company.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 30, 2026
But perhaps the most bizarre directive in the will: that one-sixteenth of Hughes’s estate, or $156 million, go to Melvin Dummar, a gas-station operator in Utah.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 29, 2026
The operator still asked for my mama and I said, “I’m trying to reach my mama,” although that was the last thing I’d call Cecile to her face.
From "Gone Crazy in Alabama" by Rita Williams-Garcia
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
