Verb

(operat)

(transitive, or, intransitive) To perform a work or labour; to exert power or strength, physical or mechanical; to act.

(transitive, or, intransitive) To produce an appropriate physical effect; to issue in the result designed by nature; especially (medicine) to take appropriate effect on the human system.

(transitive, or, intransitive) To act or produce effect on the mind; to exert moral power or influence.

* Atterbury

The virtues of private persons operate but on a few.

* Jonathan Swift

A plain, convincing reason operates on the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live.

To perform some manual act upon a human body in a methodical manner, and usually with instruments, with a view to restore soundness or health, as in amputation, lithotomy, etc.

(transitive, or, intransitive) To deal in stocks or any commodity with a view to speculative profits.

(transitive, or, intransitive) To produce, as an effect; to cause.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01, author=Robert L. Dorit, volume=100, issue=1, page=23

, magazine= , title= Rereading Darwin , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}

(transitive, or, intransitive) To put into, or to continue in, operation or activity; to work.

to operate a machine

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)

, volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}

Verb

(en verb)

To cause to take, either by openly offering or through deceit.

We administered the medicine to our dog by mixing it in his food.

* Macaulay

A noxious drug had been administered to him.

To apportion out.

* Spectator

A fountain administers to the pleasure as well as the plenty of the place.

* Macaulay

Justice was administered with an exactness and purity not before known.

* Philips

[Let zephyrs] administer their tepid, genial airs.

To manage or supervise the conduct, performance or execution of; to govern or regulate the parameters for the conduct, performance or execution of; to work in an administrative capacity.

* Alexander Pope

For forms of government let fools contest: / Whate'er is best administered is best.

To minister (to).

administering to the sick

(legal) To settle, as the estate of one who dies without a will, or whose will fails of an executor.

To tender, as an oath.

* Shakespeare

Swear to keep the oath that we administer .