核心畫面
You can picture operate as making something run and do its job — and standing at the controls of it. The most concrete version is a hand on a machine, working the buttons and levers so it does what it should. From there it stretches to anything that 'runs and works': a business, a system, a surgeon's hands inside a body, even a law quietly taking effect. The thread is: a thing is up and working, often with someone steering it.
可以想成「讓某個東西運轉起來、把它的工作做出來」——而且常常是你站在操控的位置上。最具體的版本是一隻手放在機器上，按…更多收起
可以想成「讓某個東西運轉起來、把它的工作做出來」——而且常常是你站在操控的位置上。最具體的版本是一隻手放在機器上，按鈕扳桿都聽你的，讓它照該有的樣子動。再往外延伸到任何「在運轉、在運作」的東西：一家公司、一套制度、外科醫生在身體裡動的手，甚至一條法律悄悄生效。共通的線索是：某個東西正開著、正運作，背後常有人在掌舵。原始詞典資料8 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
operateverb/ˈɒpəɹeɪt/
- 1
To perform a work or labour; to exert power or strength, physical or mechanical; to act.
- Could someone explain how this meeting operates?
- In this town, the garbage removal staff operate between six o'clock at midnight.
- 2
To produce an effect.
- We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.
- 3
To produce an effect.
- The drug operates by facilitating the negative neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), resulting in the blocking of neural long-term potentiation.
- 4
To produce an effect.
- The Virtues of private Perſons, how Bright and Exemplary ſoever, operate but on Few; on thoſe only who are near enough to obſerve, and inclin'd to imitate them: their ſphere of Action is narrow, and their Influence is confin'd to it.
- A plain, convincing reason operates on the mind both of a learned and ignorant hearer as long as they live.
- 5
To bring about as an effect; to cause.
- Strictures upon style, which are for the most part good, but time has operated a change in many respects even since he wrote.
- It is supposed that western Europe was overpopulated and that the crusades operated a beneficial reduction of numbers.
- 6
medicinesciencesTo perform some manual act upon a human body in a methodical manner, and usually with instruments, with a view to restore soundness or health, as in amputation, lithotomy, etc.
- The surgeon had to operate on her heart.
- I'm being operated tomorrow.
- 7
To deal in stocks or any commodity with a view to speculative profits.
- 8
To put into, or to continue in, operation or activity; to work.
- to operate a machine
- to operate a system
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。