different between operation vs instrumentality

English

Etymology

From Middle French operation, from Old French operacion, from Latin oper?ti?, from the verb operor (“I work”), from opus, operis (“work”). Equivalent to operate +? -ion.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??p???e???n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??p???e???n/
• Rhymes: -e???n
• Hyphenation: op?e?ra?tion

Noun

operation (countable and uncountable, plural operations)

1. 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.

2. The method or practice by which actions are done.
3. The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral.

   • the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts.

   • 1695, John Dryden (translator), Observations on the Art of Painting by Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy

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

4. A planned undertaking.

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

   The Katrina relief operation was considered botched.

5. A business or organization.

   We run our operation from a storefront.

   They run a multinational produce-supply operation.

6. (medicine) A surgical procedure.

   She had an operation to remove her appendix.
7. (computing, logic, mathematics) A procedure for generating a value from one or more other values (the operands);
   (mathematics, more formally) a function which maps zero or more (but typically two) operands to a single output value.

8. (military) A military campaign (e.g. Operation Desert Storm)
9. (obsolete) Effect produced; influence.

   • The bards […] had great operation on the vulgar.

Synonyms

• (mathematics): function, transformation

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??????? (oper?shon)
• ? Scottish Gaelic: opairèisean

Translations

References

• operation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• operation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• operation in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• petronoia

Interlingua

Noun

operation (plural operationes)

1. operation (surgical procedure)

Middle French

Noun

operation f (plural operations)

1. function; role

Swedish

Etymology

From Latin oper?ti?

Pronunciation

Noun

operation c

1. (medicine) surgery

Declension

References

• operation in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• operation in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

English

Etymology

instrumental +? -ity

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?nst??m?n?tal?ti/

Noun

instrumentality (countable and uncountable, plural instrumentalities)

1. (uncountable) The quality or condition of being instrumental; serving a purpose, being useful.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, p. 294:

     In a later vision the Saviour revealed to her in detail the ‘great design’ which he wished to establish through her instrumentality.

2. (countable, law) A governmental organ with a specific purpose.
   • 1994, Title 17 of the United States Code, §104A(a)(2):

     Any work in which the copyright was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or instrumentality thereof, is not a restored work.

3. (countable) Something that is instrumental; an instrument.