Noun

(en noun)

The method by which a device performs its function.

It is dangerous to look at the beam of a laser while it is in operation .

The method or practice by which actions are done.

The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.

* John Locke

The pain and sickness caused by manna are the effects of its operation on the stomach.

* Dryden

Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation , can never attain to perfection.

A planned undertaking.

The police ran an operation to get vagrants off the streets.

The ''Katrina'' relief operation was considered botched.

A business or organization.

We run our operation from a storefront.

They run a multinational produce-supply operation .

(medicine) a surgical procedure.

She had an operation to remove her appendix.

(computing, logic, mathematics) a procedure for generating a value from one or more other values (the operands).

(military) a military campaign (e.g. )

(obsolete) Effect produced; influence.

* Fuller

The bards had great operation on the vulgar.

Noun

(en noun)

The act of one who proceeds, or who prosecutes a design or transaction

The collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference

Progress or movement from one thing to another.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting, […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town. I was completely mystified at such an unusual proceeding .}}

A measure or step taken in a course of business; a transaction; as, an illegal proceeding; a cautious or a violent proceeding.

* (Macaulay)

The proceedings of the high commission.

Plural'', see ''proceedings .