OPERATE ON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does operate on mean? 

• OPERATE ON (verb)
  The verb OPERATE ON has 1 sense:

1. perform surgery on

  Familiarity information: OPERATE ON used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OPERATE ON (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Perform surgery on

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

operate; operate on

Context example:

The doctors operated on the patient but failed to save his life

Hypernyms (to "operate on" is one way to...):

care for; treat (provide treatment for)

Domain category:

medicine; practice of medicine (the learned profession that is mastered by graduate training in a medical school and that is devoted to preventing or alleviating or curing diseases and injuries)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "operate on"):

desex; desexualise; desexualize; fix; sterilise; sterilize; unsex (make infertile)

face-lift; lift (perform cosmetic surgery on someone's face)

trephine (operate on with a trephine)

venesect (practice venesection)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Did he operate on his foot?

 Context examples 

InSight will operate on the surface for one Martian year, plus 40 Martian days, or sols, until Nov. 24, 2020.

(NASA InSight Lander Arrives on Martian Surface, NASA)

“Now you may mizzle, jemmy (as we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair I'll operate on him.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"Speak for yourself!" cried Miss Baedeker violently. "Your hand shakes. I wouldn't let you operate on me!"

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)