Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not working or functioning.
- adj. No longer in force; countermanded: declared the previous instructions inoperative.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not operative or operating; destitute of activity or of effect; inert: as, laws rendered inoperative by neglect; inoperative remedies.
Wiktionary
- adj. not working or functioning; either idle or broken
- adj. law No longer legally binding
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not operative; not active; producing no effects
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not working or taking effect
Etymologies
- in- + operative. (Wiktionary)
Examples
““Dallas pays ACS [the camera provider] a guaranteed $3,799 per month for each operational camera, and just a fraction of that to maintain inoperative cameras.””
Your City Needs You to Blow Through Red Lights - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com
“This aspect of aesthetic community is not the same as what another French philosopher, Jean-Luc Nancy, terms the "inoperative community," the longing for the original idea of community that was lost or broken in the transition to modernity, the dialectic of what sociologists term Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.”
The Huffington Post: Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit
“I'm not sure why the creators of the site felt the need to sneer at attempts to revive the language "The good folk of Adelaide will not accept the learning of an ancient language as a substitute for English because of sentimental reasons"—or why the site renders my Back button inoperative, which is extremely annoying—but it's an interesting enough site I'm posting it anyway.”
“Long, however, before mesmerism was heard of, medical history attests examples in which patients who baffled the skill of the ablest physicians have fixed their fancies on some remedy that physicians would call inoperative for good or for harm, and have recovered by the remedies thus singularly self-suggested.”
“In the case Thursday, Sullenberger was forced to glide because both engines were inoperative, which is highly unusual.”
“There is every indication that he will find language the satisfies him that his referendum pledge is "inoperative," as Richard Nixon once said about his promises.”
The Wall Street Journal: Giving Up Sovereignty Is a High Price to Save a Currency U.K. Never Adopted
“Administrations make language of past Administrations on certain issues 'inoperative'. 15 years after Reagan no one was repeating his cant about "the beloved Holy Mujahadeen Freedom Fighters" of Afghanistan.”
“His own aides embarrassed him last November by failing to give him the full details of Cheney's latest heart attack; Bush went before the cameras to offer blithe assurances that were later rendered "inoperative," as they said in Dick Nixon's days.”
“This was before the Justice Department voter suppression scandals broke, so I guess that promise is "inoperative" now, just like the promises the GOP made after caging scandals targeting minority voters in New Jersey and Louisiana 2 decades ago.”
“In one sweeping statement, Mises has negated Christendom and every social, economic, and moral teaching of the Catholic Church; this statement also renders "inoperative" the entire Classical moral and philosophical tradition.”
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