Noun

(en noun)

One who distributes, a thing that distributes.

In an internal combustion engine, the device that distributes current to the spark plugs.

Noun

(en noun)

One who operates.

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, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator .}}

A telecommunications facilitator whose job is to establish temporary network connections.

(mathematics) A function or other mapping that carries variables defined on a domain into another variable or set of variables in a defined range.

Chinese whispers.

(informal) A person who is adept at making deals or getting results, especially one who uses questionable methods.

A member of a military Special Operations unit.

(computing) The administrator of a channel or network on IRC.

(linguistics) A kind of expression that enters into an a-bar movement dependency and is said to bind a variable.

In the sentence "What did Bill say he wants to buy?", "what" is an operator , binding a phonetically empty variable.