operative.

1. Working or producing the relevant effect in the context under consideration.

2. In force or effective under a legal or formal rule.

3. An agent carrying out intelligence, covert or similar specialized operations.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• operative mechanism
• operative system

On the page

The operative mechanism connected the initial signal to the measured response.

The system remained operative while the nonessential display was unavailable.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Normally non-gradable for a specified formal status; compare degree only where the context genuinely concerns a gradable capacity or characteristic. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: status distinction, institutional analysis, scope qualification, rights analysis. Disciplines: formal writing, institutional procedures, legal-administrative language. Commonness: moderately common.