Noun

Singular operator

Plural operators

operator (plural operators)

1. One who operates.
2. A telecommunications facilitator whose job is to establish temporary network connections.
3. (mathematics) A function or other mapping that carries variables defined on a domain into another variable or set of variables in a defined range.
4. Another name for Chinese whispers.
5. (informal) A person who is adept at making deals or getting results, especially one who uses questionable methods.
6. A member of a military Special Operations unit.
7. (computing) The administrator of a channel or network on IRC.

Derived terms

• smooth operator

Related terms

• opera
• operable
• operand
• operant
• operate
• operation
• operational
• operative
• opus

In mathematics, an operator is a function which operates on (or modifies) another function. Often, an "operator" is a function which acts on functions to produce other functions (the sense in which Oliver Heaviside used the term); or it may be a generalization of such a function, as in linear algebra, where some of the terminology reflects the origin of the subject in operations on the functions which are solutions of differential equations. An operator can perform a function on any number of operands (inputs) though most often there is only one operand.

An operator might also be called an operation, but the point of view is different. For instance, one can say "the operation of addition" (but not the "operator of addition") when focusing on the operands and result. One says "addition operator" when focusing on the process of addition, or from the more abstract viewpoint, the function +: S×S → S.

Notation

An operator name or operator symbol is a notation which denotes a particular operator. When there is no danger of confusion, an operator name or operator symbol may be referred to more briefly as an "operator". Strictly speaking, however, the operator is a mathematical object and not the syntactic entity which denotes it. The reason for identifying it with its notation is that there are some operators which have come to have standard notations.

Unicode reserves U+2200 to U+22FF for basic "Mathematical Operators," almost all of which is defined in version 1.0 (and thus can be displayed by most internet browsers released since October 1991)