Operating

How to spell operating

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce operating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does operating mean?

1. verbControlling or running a machine, system, or process so that it functions.
2. adjectiveRelating to the routine running of a business, machine, or organisation.

Operating in a sentence

• verb

  She spent the morning operating the new packing machine on the factory line.

• adjective

  The company cut its operating costs by switching to cheaper suppliers.

• verb

  The crane is operating at half capacity until the repairs are finished.

• adjective

  The laptop will not start because its operating system is corrupted.

Where does operating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin verb operari, meaning 'to work' or 'to labour', which itself was built on the noun opus (with its stem oper-), the ordinary Latin word for a piece of work or a finished labour. The same opus survives almost unchanged in the modern term for a major musical composition, and it lurks inside the everyday English words 'opera' and 'cooperate'. English took in the verb 'operate' in the early 1600s, at first in medical and mechanical senses, meaning to produce an effect or to work a machine; the surgical sense of 'operating' on a patient followed in the same period. The present participle 'operating' simply adds the -ing ending to that verb, and because the base ends in a silent 'e' that is dropped before -ing, the spelling keeps a single 't' and gives us 'operating' rather than any doubled form. The unstressed middle vowel (the schwa in oper-) is the usual stumbling point, since the ear hears 'op-rating' even though the root demands the 'e'.

How the word is built

• oper- (from Latin opus, operis: work)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ing (present participle suffix)