Noun

(en noun)

(senseid)One who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization, especially in military, police or government organizations.

* , chapter=19

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.}}

(senseid)One who holds a public office.

(senseid)An agent or servant imparted with the ability, to some degree, to act on initiative.

(senseid)(colloquial, military) A commissioned officer.

Noun

(en noun)

One who operates.

*

, 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.