operationalize en · VERB
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
- /ˌɑpəˈɹeɪʃənəˌlaɪz/ (US)
- /ɒpəˈɹeɪʃ(ə)nəlʌɪz/ (UK)
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃épos Proto-Italic *opos Latin opus Latin opera Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Latin operātusbf. Latin operor Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin operātiōder. Old French operacionbor. Middle English operacioun English operation English -al English operational Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English operationalize From operational + -ize.
Meanings
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(transitive) To make operational.
I have a lot of sexual fantasies that I'm never going to operationalize. I enjoy them just as fantasies.
1981 August 15, Nancy Wechsler, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, “Sadomasochism: Fears, Facts, Fantasies”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 5, page 6:
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(transitive) To define (a concept) in such a way that it can be practically measured.
To operationalize a concept is to identify those variables in terms of which the phenomenon represented by the concept can be accurately observed.
1956, Ernest Greenwood, “New Directions in Delinquency Research: A Commentary on a Study by Bernard Lander”, in Social Service Review, volume 30, number 2, page 152:Vision seems ‘childishly simple’ to us but proves to be fiendishly hard to operationalise, precisely because we are so good at it.
2012, Adam Zeman, ‘Only Connect’, Literary Review, number 399:General vocabulary is often defined as a common core of English words and operationalized as the most frequent words in a balanced and representative corpus of English.
2018, Clarence Green, James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, →DOI, page 107:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| operationalizes | Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres | lexicographic | |
| operationalizing | Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| operationalise | alternative | lexicographic | |
| operationalized | Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| operationalized | Tense=Past | lexicographic |
Deriveds
operationalizable · unoperationalized · operationalizability · operationalization