Operator

Full definition of operator

(plural operators)

1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 1, The stories did not seem to me to touch life. â€¦ 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.