1. 经营；管理；运营；运作
    If you operate a business or organization, you work to keep it running properly. If a business or organization operates, it carries out its work.

    e.g. Until his death in 1986 Greenwood owned and operated an enormous pear orchard.
           到他1986年去世前，格林伍德一直拥有并管理着一片面积广阔的梨园。
    e.g. ...allowing commercial banks to operate in the country...
           允许商业银行在该国开展业务

2. 工作；起作用
    The way that something operates is the way that it works or has a particular effect.

    e.g. Ceiling and wall lights can operate independently...
           吊灯和壁灯可单独开关。
    e.g. How do accounting records operate?...
           账目是如何记录的？

3. 操作，控制，使用（机器、设备等）；（机器等）运转，运行
    When you operate a machine or device, or when it operates, you make it work.

    e.g. A massive rock fall trapped the men as they operated a tunnelling machine...
           这些工人在操作隧道挖掘机时被大量的落石困住了。
    e.g. The number of fax machines operating around the world has now reached ten million.
           现在全球使用的传真机数量已达到了1,000万台。

4. （对…）动手术
    When surgeons operate on a patient in a hospital, they cut open a patient's body in order to remove, replace, or repair a diseased or damaged part.

    e.g. The surgeon who operated on the King released new details of his injuries...
           为国王动手术的外科医生通报了其伤势的最新详情。
    e.g. You examine a patient and then you decide whether or not to operate.
           先为病人作检查，然后再决定是否做手术。

5. （在某一地区）作战，执行任务
    If military forces are operating in a particular region, they are in that place in order to carry out their orders.

    e.g. Up to ten thousand Zimbabwean soldiers are operating in Mozambique...
           多达1万名津巴布韦士兵正在莫桑比克执行任务。
    e.g. This freed the Austrian army to operate against the French.
           这使得奥地利军队可以对法军作战。