| 释义 |
operator|ˈɒpəreɪtə(r)|
[a. late L. operātor, agent-n. f. operārī to operate: cf. F. opérateur (14th c., Oresme).]
One who or that which operates.
1. One who does or effects something; a worker, an agent; † a maker, producer, creator (obs.).
1611Cotgr., Operateur, an Operator, a worker; also, a Quacksaluer, Cheater, Imposter (called so at Tours). 1632Star Chamb. Cases (Camden) 173 Mr Deane is falsely accused, the maine operator is Mr Travers. 1696Edwards Demonstr. Exist. God ii. 39 So admirably fenced and guarded is this curious piece of workmanship by the celestial operator of it. a1716South Serm. (1744) X. i. 21 This is the philosophy of the popish operators in all their religious performances. 1772Char. in Ann. Reg. ii. 31 He is recorded as operator of all these gaudy works, in a large inscription over the tribune. a1843Southey Comm. Pl. Bk. Ser. ii. 75 Prince Hohenlohe is the operator in this cure.
2. a. One who performs the practical or mechanical operations belonging to any process, business, or scientific investigation; a person professionally or officially engaged in doing this; spec. a secret-service agent. Cf. operative n. 3.
1597A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 50 b/2 The Mechanicall operatours, or handyecraftes men. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 165 Culinary operators observe that flesh boyles best, when the bones are boyled with it. 1667Boyle in Phil. Trans. II. 594 This..Trial..you may get reiterated by the Society's Operator. 1683Wood Life 22 May (O.H.S.) III. 55 Mr. Christopher White, the skilfull and industrious operator of the University. 1726Leoni tr. Alberti's Archit. Pref. 2 The manual Operator being no more than an Instrument to the Architect. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) III. 302 In calcining this stone over a fire..the operator must take care not to hang his head over the effluvia arising from it. 1831Brewster Nat. Magic x. (1833) 246 Accompanied by..his own mechanical operator. 1866Crump Banking x. 226 The operators [of the Mint] were formed into a corporation by charter of Edward III. 1966J. Porter Sour Cream iii. 36, I'm sure you won't find any snags. She's a most experienced operator. Ibid. viii. 101 I'll know by mid-morning if Feodorov's side of the operation has been successful... He's a very experienced operator. 1977S. Coulter Soyuz Affair vii. 73 He keeps a close watch on his things... He's a trained operator.
†b. (See quot.) Obs.
1731Gentl. Mag. I. 25 The following List of Officers established in the most notorious Gaming-Houses... 3. An Operator, who deals the cards at a cheating Game called Faro.
3. a. One who performs a surgical operation or operations; an operating surgeon or dentist.
1597A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. *iiij, The rigoure and severitye of the first Operatours or Chyrurgians. Ibid. 38/1 Because the Ioynct may be præsented the stedyer and faster to the Operator. 1706Phillips, Operatour for the Teeth, one skill'd in drawing and cleansing the Teeth, and in making Artificial ones. 1813J. Thomson Lect. Inflam. 537 There are..cases in which this mortification supervenes..without any fault being attributable to the operator. 1869Ruskin Q. of Air §146 A great operator told me that his hand could check itself within about the two-hundredth of an inch, in penetrating a membrane.
†b. A name given to a quack manufacturer of drugs, etc. (cf. quot. 1611 in 1); one who lives by fraudulent operations. Obs.
1674R. Godfrey Inj. & Ab. Physic 10 Such perverse Mercurial and Antimonial preparations as are made by Mercenary Operators. 1696Phillips (ed. 5), Operator,..more particularly it signifies an Empyric or Mountebank that sells his Drugs and his Remedies in publick upon a Theatre. 1704Swift T. Tub x, He deals in a pernicious Kind of Writings, called Second Parts,..under the Name of the Author of the First... As soon as I lay down my Pen, this nimble Operator will have stole it. 1710Addison Tatler No. 131 ⁋1 There is in this City a certain Fraternity of Chymical Operators... They can squeeze Bourdeaux out of the Sloe, and draw Champagne from an Apple.
4. One who carries on financial operations in stocks, shares, or commodities, or who works a speculative business. Also now freq. with a stronger implication of speculativeness or shrewdness; one who acts in an underhand manner. (Cf. operate 4 d.)
1828Examiner 138/1 The principal operator for a rise is supposed to be getting rid of his stock. 1875N. Amer. Rev. CXX. 157 An operator in Wall Street, and a professional gambler. 1883Manch. Guard. 3 Nov. 6/7 The great operator whose movements had become almost as potent an influence on [cotton] markets as the size of a crop or the state of trade. 1895Daily News 30 Dec. 7/5 The market declined early on large receipts, but eventually improved, due to local operators covering. 1951[see hole n. 11]. 1955D. W. Maurer in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. XXIV. 35 Also, unlike many if not most other types of underworld operator, he tends to take his woman on the road with him. 1959N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 399 He spent years hob⁓nobbing with gentlemanly shits and half-ass operators. 1964A. W. Gouldner in I. L. Horowitz New Sociol. 209 The whole world may be seen as one of marks and operators. 1970New Yorker 6 June 132/3 He is what we call nowadays an ‘operator’, and completely unscrupulous and unashamed. 1971D. Potter Brit. Eliz. Stamps i. 15 Stamps were solemnly discussed in the financial columns,..and get-rich-quick operators joined in the mêlée. 1974Times 4 Feb. 12/6 One almost expects him to say, with J. K. Galbraith, that modesty is a much over⁓rated virtue, but he is far too smooth an operator to be trapped into such an admission.
5. a. One who operates or works a machine, telegraph, etc.: cf. operate 6; spec. one who works at the switchboard of a telephone exchange (now the usual sense). Also in Comb.
1847Commerc. Rev. of South & West Nov. 138 Its receipt [was] acknowledged by the Montreal operator in 30 minutes. 1858E. E. Hale If, Yes, & Perhaps (1868) 119 It is not the business simply of ‘operators’ in telegraphic dens to know this Morse alphabet. 1865Harper's Mag. July 169/2 Here they gathered a new force.., a telegraph operator, and workmen. 1870F. L. Pope Electr. Tel. viii. (1872) 103 To become an expert operator requires much time and patience. 1873J. Richards Wood-working Factories 103 The following rules..are recommended to operators when they have occasion to determine the angle and bevel of wood cutters. 1884List of Subscribers (London & Globe Telephone Co.) 2 The Special Telephone Exchange Switchboard is so constructed, that the operators..do not overhear the conversation between Subscribers. 1887Pall Mall G. 19 Aug. 3/2 A machine operator, making nine shirts a day. 1891Pearson's Weekly II. 39 From being a telegraph operator..he rose to the position of superintendent of that branch. 1921[see dial v. 4]. 1927Haldane & Huxley Animal Biol. vi. 140 The human cerebrum contains more than a thousand million nerve-cells each connected by fibres with scores or hundreds of others,..so we can get some idea of its complexity by imagining a telephone exchange in which the whole human race were acting as operators. 1972B. F. Conners Don't embarrass Bureau (1973) ii. 201 Operator, I'd like to call person to person to Officer Dolan. 1976Norwich Mercury 10 Dec. 10/2 Bookings for operator-connected international telephone calls over Christmas will be accepted by the Post Office from Monday. 1977G. Markstein Chance Awakening xix. 55 He dialled 100. He gave the operator the number. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ asked the operator.
b. U.S. One who is licensed to drive a motor vehicle.
1967Boston Sunday Herald 7 May iii. 1/1 Several witnesses to the accident have supplied police pieces of information, which, when put together, revealed the involvement of this other car—and male operator, who stopped at this point, without knowing his car—and he—had actually been involved in the tragedy. 1972N.Y. Law Jrnl. 24 Oct. 18/6 At the time involved defendant was a resident of the State of New Jersey and the holder of a New Jersey operator's license. It also appears from a Motor Vehicle Bureau exhibit..that defendant's New York license had been cancelled.
6. One who works a business, undertaking, etc. Also in wider use, of companies, corporations, etc.
1838Niles' Reg. 13 Oct. 112/2 Our trade..is brought nearly to a stand again, by a collision between the dealers, operators and boatmen, as regards the price of freight. 1851C. Cist Sk. Cincinnati in 1851 170 The largest operators in this line [manufacturing alcohol], are Lowell Fletcher & Co. 1857Harper's Mag. Sept. 459/1 The leases of the operators usually covered a ‘run’ upon the out-crop..of from fifty to seventy yards. 1875Chicago Tribune 30 Sept. 2/4 The operators on the Pan-Handle Railroad have been paying 2½ cents per bushel for mining over 1½ inch screen. 1877Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 238 Messrs. P. S. and J. C. were the principal operators in gold-veins last season. 1881― Mining Gloss., Operator,..the person, whether proprietor or lessee, actually operating a colliery. 1884Sat. Rev. 5 July 4/2 The skilful operators who controlled the Chicago Convention. 1891Daily News 9 Feb. 6/4 If the coke-workers in several counties in Pennsylvania carry out their threat to strike work..the operators intend to bank the ovens and stop all production. 1897Outing (U.S.) XXX. 170/1 A yeast and spirit distillery..where owner and operator divide the result of the year's working. 1953Manch. Guardian Weekly 19 Nov. 9 The State, through a new sort of BBC is to own the new system and will hire it out to commercial ‘operators’. 1962Listener 8 Mar. 401/1 Though they [sc. the nationalized industries] were to be regarded partly as commercial operators, partly as public services, the relation between these two functions was not defined in the legislation that set them up. 1972Lebende Sprachen XVII. 134/1 The official body representing the majority of independent operators is the British Independent Air Transport Association. 1977Times 23 Mar. 14/3 Exporters have turned increasingly to road haulage for cargoes... This traffic..has attracted a large number of operators who are not equipped for the job. 1977Offshore Engineer May 42/1 The results of the four wells are being closely studied by the operator Elf Aquitaine and partners ETAP and STEG.
7. Math. A symbol indicating an operation or series of operations, and itself subject to algebraical operation. Also, a sign or symbol which effects other types of operation, as logical, phonological, syntactic, etc.
1855Carmichael Calculus of Operations 3 The indetermination is due to a source quite independent of the character of the functional operator. 1925Bryant & Correll Alternating-Current Circuits iii. 74 The operator, j = √(- 1), turns the vector through 90 degrees in a counterclockwise direction each time it is used. 1936Jrnl. Symbolic Logic I. 60 The formal system..employs material implication, propositional negation, universal quantification, and operators analogous to the combinatory operators I, B, and C. 1937A. Smeaton tr. Carnap's Logical Syntax of Lang. i. §6. 21 The expressions which occur at the beginning of the sentences above..are called the unlimited universal operator, the unlimited existential operator, the limited universal operator, and the limited existential operator respectively. 1952Eng. & Gmc. Stud. IV. 12 We may regard Modern English stone as the result of operating with an operator that I shall write {ob}AS. ā > MnE. [ou]{cb} on Anglo-Saxon stān. 1952S. C. Kleene Introd. Metamath. iv. 73 Let us call an expression of one of these ten forms an operator. In particular, ⊃, &, {logicor}, ¬ are propositional connectives, and operators of the forms ɐx and {semE}x are quantifiers..; these six are logical operators. 1957L. Fox Numerical Solution Two-Point Boundary Probl. ii. 8 In the theory of finite differences we carry this farther, introducing first the operator E, the effect of change of position, and defined by the equation y(x + ph) = Epy(x). 1964E. Bach Introd. Transformational Gram. v. 113 The concatenation operator +. 1965Phillips & Williams Inorg. Chem. I. i. 12 Wave mechanics sets up, as postulates, equations of the type Hψ = Xψ, where ψ is the wave function, and X some observed property such as the energy, momentum, etc. H is a mathematical instruction (e.g. differentiate with respect to x) or set of instructions..called an operator. 1966A. Koutsoudas Writing Transformational Gram. i. 6 The rules of a transformational grammar consist of three types of symbols: (1) vocabulary symbols, (2) operators, and (3) abbreviators. Vocabulary symbols are symbols used to represent syntactic classes and other linguistic units; operators, as their name indicates, symbolize certain operations; and abbreviators are devices used to conflate the listing of rules. 1968Corlett & Tinsley Pract. Programming ii. 14 Numbers and variables may be combined by the arithmetic operators + - × {div} / {expon} to form an arithmetic expression. 1969V. J. Calderbank Course on Programming in FORTRAN IV iii. 28 Another very common form of logical expression..is the relational expression. This has the general form e1re2 where e1 and e2 are arithmetic expressions..being compared by one of the following relational operators, r: .EQ. Equal to (= ); .LT. Less than (‹); [etc.]. 1969P. A. M. Seuren Operators & Nucleus iv. 116 Our hypothesis of operators as a deep structure category in grammar thus has a philosophical pedigree leading back to both the theory of quantifiers and the logic of modalities. 1976A. R. Lacey Dict. Philos. 148 A logical operator is any expression whose function is to affect in a specific way the logical properties (e.g. the entailments) of an expression or expressions to which it is attached, e.g. ‘and’ operates on two propositions by joining them into a whole, which has entailments neither of them has separately.
8. a. In ‘Basic English’, an article, particle, preposition, etc., or one of certain words used as substitutes for verbs; a ‘superverb’.
1929C. K. Ogden in Psyche IX. iii. 1 The number of necessary names is 400, of qualifiers (adjectives) 100, of operators, particles, etc., 100. 1930― Basic English iii. 60 In conversation, the operators are frequently shortened to more convenient forms. Thus I will becomes I'll. 1946H. Jacob On Choice of Common Lang. iii. 104 Three analogical extras, say, see, and send..provide a useful link between the operators and the verb-system proper. 1966M. Pei Gloss. Ling. Terminol. 188 Operator, one of the verbal forms, prepositions, articles, etc. (about one hundred in number) in Basic English.
b. Linguistics. = form-word s.v. form n. 22, function word s.v. function n. 3 c.
1938B. L. Whorf Lang. Thought & Reality (1956) 128 Predication..operators (words specialized for predication, otherwise lexical meaning blank (‘be, become, cause, do’) or vague (‘make, turn, get,’ etc.)). auxiliary verbs. 1957S. Potter Mod. Linguistics vii. 143 Operators are..forms like articles, prepositions, conjunctions and conjunction adverbs..which perform syntactic functions. 1967[see functor 2].
9. Biol. [tr. F. opérateur (Jacob & Monod 1959, in Compt. Rend. CCXLIX. 1284).] A segment of chromosomal DNA which is thought to control the activity of the structural gene(s) of an operon, protein synthesis occurring when it is uncombined with a repressor (or is absent altogether).
1961Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. XXVI. 194/1 The synthesis of messenger RNA is supposed to be a sequential and oriented process which can be initiated only at certain regions, or operators, on the DNA strands. 1969New Scientist 28 Aug. 416/1 In the presence of substrate, the repressor is altered, so that it can no longer bind to the operator, and enzymes are synthesized freely. 1971D. J. Cove Genetics xi. 165 A mutation in the operator gene prevents the recognition of the structural genes by the repressor. 1973Nature 16 Nov. 133/1 The sites on DNA to which repressors bind are called operators. |