Phrase guide

operative word

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

noun

Meaning 1

The key word in a sentence.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

Planes crash rarely, but for the media the operative word is "crash".

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.

Word forms

Inflections and variants

operative words — plural

Word family

Derived and related words

Derived: none provided

Related: none provided

Semantic map

Other relationships

Sources

Where this information comes from

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Changes made: Wiktionary markup was removed and matching senses were grouped; WordNet and CMUdict evidence was merged into the canonical word page. Source quotations with separate cited works are not republished.

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