different between power vs operation

English

Alternative forms

• powre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English poer, from Old French poeir, from Vulgar Latin *pot?re, from Latin possum, posse (“to be able”); see potent. Compare Modern French pouvoir. Displaced native Old English anweald.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pa??(?)/, /?pa?.?(?)/
  • (with triphthong smoothing) IPA^(key): /pa?/, /pa?/, /p??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?pa?.?/, /?pa??/, [?p?a???], [?p?a???]
• Rhymes: -a?.?(?), -a??(?)
• Hyphenation: pow?er

Noun

power (countable and uncountable, plural powers)

1. Ability to do or undergo something.
   • 2018, Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (page 74)

     If it is spirits who have power to suffer, it seems they would also have active powers to think and will.

2. (social) Ability to coerce, influence or control.
   1. (countable) Ability to affect or influence.

      • An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

      • Thwackum, on the contrary, maintained that the human mind, since the fall, was nothing but a sink of iniquity, till purified and redeemed by grace. […] The favourite phrase of the former, was the natural beauty of virtue; that of the latter, was the divine power of grace.

      • 1998, Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

        Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present.

   2. Control or coercion, particularly legal or political (jurisdiction).
      • 1949, Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

        The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

      • 2005, Columbia Law Review, April

        In the face of expanding federal power, California in particular struggled to maintain control over its Chinese population.
   3. (metonymically, chiefly in the plural) The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.

      Synonym: powers that be

   4. (metonymically) An influential nation, company, or other such body.
3. (physical, uncountable) Effectiveness.
   1. Physical force or strength.

   2. Electricity or a supply of electricity.
   3. A measure of the rate of doing work or transferring energy.
   4. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.

4. (colloquial, dated) A large amount or number.

   • The threatning words of duke Robert comming at the last to king Henries eares, caused him foorthwith to conceiue verie sore displeasure against a power of men sent into Normandie.
5. Any of the elementary forms or parts of machines: three primary (the lever, inclined plane, and pulley) and three secondary (the wheel-and-axle, wedge, and screw).

   the mechanical powers

6. (physics, mechanics) A measure of the effectiveness that a force producing a physical effect has over time. If linear, the quotient of: (force multiplied by the displacement of or in an object) ÷ time. If rotational, the quotient of: (force multiplied by the angle of displacement) ÷ time.
7. (mathematics)
   1. A product of equal factors (and generalizations of this notion): ${\displaystyle x^{n}}$, read as "${\displaystyle x}$ to the power of ${\displaystyle n}$" or the like, is called a power and denotes the product ${\displaystyle x\times x\times \cdots \times x}$, where ${\displaystyle x}$ appears ${\displaystyle n}$ times in the product; ${\displaystyle x}$ is called the base and ${\displaystyle n}$ the exponent.
   2. (set theory) Cardinality.
   3. (statistics) The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.
8. (biblical, in the plural) In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "power": electric, nuclear, optical, mechanical, political, absolute, corporate, institutional, military, economic, solar, magic, magical, huge, physical, mental, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, sexual, seductive, coercive, erotic, natural, cultural, positive, negative, etc.

Synonyms

Antonyms

• impotence
• weakness

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? German: Power
• ? Welsh: p?er

Translations

Verb

power (third-person singular simple present powers, present participle powering, simple past and past participle powered)

1. (transitive) To provide power for (a mechanical or electronic device).

   This CD player is powered by batteries.

2. (transitive) To hit or kick something forcefully.
3. To enable or provide the impetus for.

Derived terms

• power down
• power up
• empower

Translations

Adjective

power (comparative more power, superlative most power)

1. (Singapore, colloquial) Impressive.

Further reading

• power at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• powre

German

Etymology 1

From French pauvre, from Latin pauper.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?po?v?r/, [?po?v?]
• Hyphenation: po?wer

Adjective

power (comparative powerer, superlative am powersten)

1. (regional, informal) poor, miserable

Declension

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pa???r/, [?pa???]
• Homophone: Power

Verb

power

1. singular imperative of powern
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of powern

Further reading

• “power” in Duden online

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)