1638 Minute Bk. Royal Coll. Surgeons Edinb. 133 For his operating in chyrurgie being vnfrieman.

1660 Bp. J. Taylor Ductor Dubitantium I. i. v. 200 Like unhandsome and ill tasted physick, it is against nature in the taking and in its operating.

1674 R. Godfrey Var. Injuries in Physick 39 After long, tedious, and chargeable operatings to no purpose, he pulls down his laboratory.

1690 J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding ii. xxi. 121 The introducing into Discourses concerning the Mind, with the name of Faculties, a Notion of their operating, has..little advanced our Knowledge in that part of our selves.

1739 H. Baker Mock-doctor iii. v. 222 Yest; but I fear lest it choke her in operating.

1799 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 2 157 Vesalius,..in his ‘Chirurg. magn.’..describes the whole process of operating.

1846 F. Brittan tr. J. F. Malgaigne Man. Operative Surg. 5 The bistoury must be repeatedly passed over the same course, so as to divide layer by layer. Here ‘tails’ are inevitable; but this inconvenience is light in comparison to the advantages to be sometimes derived from this mode of operating.

1877 Spirit of Times 24 Nov. 460/2 (advt.) I have cured the following diseases and habits of the horse by operating on their teeth, such as Coughing, Frothing, Drooling, Loss of Flesh, [etc.].

1913 C. Roberts & R. M. Smith (title) Practical locomotive operating.

1962 Lancet 8 Dec. 1228/2 Here operating is undesirable, except in those few patients in whom leukoplakia develops as well.

1984 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 21 July 145/2 The unsocial hours during which most emergency operating is done has meant that much of it has been unsupervised.

1993 Holiday Which? Jan. 39/2 Tour operating is a cut-throat business.

1956 D. E. Charlwood No Moon Tonight 15 Where the planes were circling, climbing steadily to operating altitude.

1992 Pilot July 65/1 67,000 feet is well above the routine operating altitudes of most jets known to be operational in the USA.

1895 Philos. Trans. 1894 (Royal Soc.) A. 185 1048 At Crewe my assistant had the use of a laboratory, but at Dowlais the operating box was always used.

2000 Austral. Financial Rev. (Nexis) 17 Aug. 31 Prices for the IHG system are reasonable, starting from around $5,000 for the operating box and its instalment.

1910 Jrnl. Royal Statist. Soc. 73 194 Changes in the operating control of roads are of comparative frequent occurrence.

1985 Bank Admin. Oct. 84/1 The microfilmer features an interchangeable film head, convenient operating controls, [etc.].

1901 Polit. Sci. Q. 16 529 Easton's point of view is that of operating cost, while Woodlock's is rather fiscal, as bearing on net revenue and investment value.

1992 New Republic 20 Apr. 10/1 (advt.) We could have built our plant in a field outside a small town to keep operating costs down.

1850–61 Trans. State Agric. Soc. Michigan 334 The operating expenses from $301,649 to $1,335,627.

1991 Constr. Equipm. Oct. 24/1 You've no doubt complained that these regulations make for unproductive trucks and excessive operating expenses.

1948 ‘N. Shute’ No Highway iv. 111 I'm prepared to shut down the inboard engines after climbing up to operating height.

1988 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) B. 321 434 The Federal Aviation Authority regulations limited operating heights to less than ca. 300 m.

1935 Amer. Jrnl. Internat. Law 29 523 The Yugoslav Government as successor to the Südbahn Co. under the operating lease.

1988 Banking World (Austral.) Jan. 30/1 Operating leases are attractive to many businesses, who might otherwise find the risk of obsolescence a deterrent to investing in high technology assets.

1905 Proc. Amer. Polit. Sci. Assoc. 2 91 The bonded indebtedness against the Boston plant is exactly one-half its capital cost and the operating profits within the city in 1904 were slightly in excess of $2,000,000.

1995 Times 9 June 24/6 A 1995 operating profit that crossed the £100 million barrier..was no mean achievement.

1903 N.Y. Times 22 Nov. (Weekly Financial Review Suppl.) 2/4 In total operating revenues the rise has been more than six and one-half million dollars.

2002 Calgary (Alberta) Herald (Nexis) 10 Nov. (Opinion) a16 Between 1997 and 2001, the city averaged an operating surplus of more than 20 per cent of its operating revenues annually.

1923 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 31 841 A considerable fraction of the timber..comes from..miscellaneous small holdings, which do not warrant the companies to construct railroads and organize their own operating crews.

1965 Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) §16 Flight crew (operating crew), those members of the aircrew whose primary concern is the operation and navigation of the aircraft and its safety in flight.

1990 Jrnl. Politics 52 888 Amtrak employees as well as the operating crews from the freight railroads are to some extent protected.

1831 New-Eng. Mag. Dec. 495 An infant..was brought into the operating room, a short time since, to be cured of a very common deformity by the knife of the surgeon.

1926 Gloss. Electr. Terms Brit. Engin. Standards 163 Operating room, a switch room in a manual or semi-automatic exchange.

2001 N.Y. Times Mag. 15 July 40/1 Operating Room No. 5..is a backdrop of blue: blue scrubs on the 10 nurses and doctors who crowd around the O.R. table; blue sterile sheets.

1850 Sci. Amer. 2 Nov. 54/3 The late surgeon Cook..had two patients killed by cannon shot while on the operating table, during naval engagements at sea.

1931 H. S. Williams Bk. Marvels 88 We had no glass-topped operating table, and our facilities for practising asepsis were not up to the modern standard.

2001 Bizarre July 36/4 Equipment can vary from an examination or operating table to the stirrup chairs that any woman visiting the clap clinic knows only to [sic] well.

1824 Lancet 1 Feb. 140/2 Such a man, gentlemen, ought never to enter the operating theatre.

1942 P. Sturges Great Moment in Four more Screenplays (1995) 503 (stage direct.) The camera draws away and we see the operating theatre well filled with students and doctors.

2001 L. Mitton Victorian Hosp. 13 Each hospital had an operating theatre; the anaesthetic rooms were separate, so that patients would not see the theatre.

1898 Electr. World 8 Nov. 482/2 The insulation of the separately excited field coils is tested at 3000 volts alternating, and the series coils and armatures at pressures at least double the normal operating voltage.

1968 QST (Amer. Radio Relay League) July 32/1 The screen grids and beam-forming plates are grounded and do not have a d.c. operating voltage applied to them.

2012 J. Lähdevaara Sci. Electric Guitars & Guitar Electronics ix. 544 It is claimed that the tuning result is independent of the operating voltage.

1728 R. Glover Poem on Sir Isaac Newton in H. Pemberton View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philos. sig. A4^v Newton..shalt lead my thought Through all the wand'rings of th' uncertain moon, And teach me all her operating powers.

1756 T. Amory Life John Buncle I. 151 To shew, not the necessary inability of man without experiences, or an operating spirit within..but [etc.].

1808 Duke of Wellington Let. to Castlereagh 5 Sept. in Dispatches (1837) IV. 142 This army..would be the operating army against what I have supposed to be the French operating army.

1825 ‘J. Nicholson’ Operative Mechanic 10 The operating force at A acting in the direction of A D.

1897 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. III. 975 Both to the physician and the operating surgeon.

1928 Engin. & Contracting 47 193/3 No additions or changes are necessary in the operating machinery.

1955 Jrnl. Pharmacol. & Exper. Therapeutics 115 483 There would seem to be no valid reason why operating personnel could not take advantage of the beneficial effects.

1990 HSUS News Summer 21 The treasurer and executive vice president is the chief operating officer.