operative
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Here, Colman Domingo’s renegade intelligence operative also refuses to tell anyone anything, but all the unspoken beats just feel like plot holes.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2026
As a KGB operative and then an assiduous apparatchik, he avoided attention.
From BBC • May 30, 2026
A U.S. special-forces operative has been charged with using classified information to reap more than $400,000 from bets on the ouster of Venezuela’s president.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 24, 2026
This is not Madman Theory, but the operative word here—the word that doesn’t fit—is theory.
From Slate • Apr. 21, 2026
He’s gone from weary businessman to CIA operative.
From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti
Vocabulary lists containing operative
100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
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Intelligence leaks
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Lincoln's Grave Robbers
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