operare

Forms

operare (first-person singular present òpero, first-person singular past historic operài, past participle operàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old and literary forms are oprare and ovrare.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin operārī (“to work; to perform a sacrifice”), in Late Latin also the active operāre.^[5][6][1] Wiktionary treats it as inherited, while the GDLI calls it a learned word.^[1][7] Sabatini–Coletti see the influence of French œuvrer in the old form ovrare.^[4]

The same verb is French ouvrer, Occitan obrar, Catalan obrar, Spanish obrar and Portuguese obrar;^[5][8][9] French also has the learned opérer.^[5][8][9]

The Latin verb is derived from opera (“work, effort”), which also had the older religious sense “sacrifice”, and that from opus (“work”).^[5][2][10] In that religious sense it passed from Church Latin into Old High German opfarōn, modern German opfern (“to sacrifice”).^[5][10][8] De Vaan traces the Latin noun to Proto-Italic *opes- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep-os (“work”), and compares Old High German uoben (“to practise, worship”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record of the spelling operare is a text of 1292, followed by Iacopone (before 1306) and Onesto da Bologna (before 1303); the form ovrare is in Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294.^[12] The sense is “to do, carry out, bring into being”, as in Guittone's Ciò che per me se dice ognora e s’ovra / de ben, l’onor è suo (“whatever good is said and done by me, the honour is his”).^[12][7]

Semantic evolution

Iacopone has the verb with a moral object: nullo bene aio operato (“I have done no good”).^[7] The intransitive sense “to act” is recorded before 1338, and “to have an effect, influence” in Galileo, before 1642.^[12] In the 17th century it took the military sense of conducting operations, first in G. Gualdo Priorato (1668); DEI notes that operazioni militari in this sense passed into French.^[12][10]

The surgical sense appears first as an intransitive in a 16th-century book of remedies of Caterina Sforza; the transitive “to operate on (a patient)” follows in Molossi's dictionary of 1839–1841.^[12] The weaving sense, “to work raised patterns into cloth”, dates from 1891.^[12] The pronominal operarsi “to come about” is old (before 1347), but its spread in the 19th century was condemned by Rigutini as an ugly neologism.^[12] In aviation the verb now also means “to run (a flight or route)”, after English operate.^[13]

Timeline

• 1292 – The spelling operare is recorded.^[12]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the form ovrare.^[12][6]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses operare.^[12]
• Before 1338 – The intransitive sense “to act, do” is recorded.^[12]
• Before 1347 – The pronominal operarsi “to come about” appears.^[12]
• 16th century – The intransitive “to perform surgery” is recorded.^[12]
• Before 1642 – Galileo uses the verb for “to have an effect”.^[12]
• 1668 – The military sense “to conduct operations” is recorded.^[12]
• 1839–1841 – Molossi records the transitive “to operate on”.^[12]
• 1891 – The weaving sense is recorded.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To act, do, work; to behave in a given way: Ha sempre operato con grande prudenza.^[6][2][14]
2. (intransitive) To be active in a field or place, of a firm or an artist: Quella società opera soprattutto in Asia.^[6][2][3]
3. (intransitive, military) To carry out operations.^[2][14][13]
4. (intransitive) To have an effect, to act on something.^[6][2][4]
5. (intransitive, mathematics) To perform operations with numbers or expressions.^[6][2][14]
6. (transitive) To do, accomplish, bring about: Il nuovo sindaco ha operato molte riforme.^[6][2][14]
7. (transitive, surgery) To operate on a patient or an organ; also absolute: Domani operano mio zio al ginocchio.^[6][2][4]
8. (transitive, textiles) To weave raised patterns into a fabric.^[6][14][15]
9. (transitive, aviation) To run a route or a flight.^[13]
10. (transitive, archaic) To use, employ.^[6][14][13]
11. (pronominal, operarsi) To come about, take place; to undergo an operation.^[14][15]

Word family

• operante
• operato
• operativo
• operatore
• operazione
• operabile
• cooperare
• adoperare

Related words

• opera
• operaio
• operatorio
• scioperare
• sciopero
• Latin opus

Usage notes

As an intransitive verb it takes the auxiliary avere.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2661
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli