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)

(label) To be unsuccessful.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= A new prescription , passage=As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}

(label) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)

(label) To neglect.

To cease to operate correctly.

(label) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.

* Bible, 1 Kings ii. 4

There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.

* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism

A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]

*

, title=The Mirror and the Lamp , chapter=2 citation , passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}

(label) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.

(label) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.

To miss attaining; to lose.

* Milton

though that seat of earthly bliss be failed

To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.

The crops failed last year.

* Bible, Job xiv. 11

as the waters fail from the sea

* Shakespeare

Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.

(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .

* Berke

If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.

(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.

* Milton

When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .

(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.

A sick man fails .

(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.

* Shakespeare

had the king in his last sickness failed

(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.

* Milton

Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.

To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.