operabatur

Operabatur is a Latin verb form meaning “was being operated” or “was being worked.” It is the imperfect passive indicative of the verb operare (to work, to operate) in the first conjugation. The form is third-person singular; when the agent is known or named, it is typically expressed with a by-phrase using a/ab + ablative, as in Machina a viro operabatur, “The machine was being operated by a man.”

In Latin, the imperfect tense conveys ongoing or customary action in the past. Therefore operabatur describes an action in progress at a past moment, rather than a completed action. It can be translated simply as “it was being operated” or, depending on the context, “he/she/it was being operated (upon).” The subject of the sentence determines the natural English translation: for example, a machine would be “the machine was being operated,” while a person could be implied as the agent or patient in a different syntactic arrangement.

Morphology and related forms: operabatur is formed from the root oper-, with the imperfect passive ending -batur, indicating third-person singular. The perfect passive participle of the same verb is operatus, used to form compound tenses like est operatus “has been operated” or fuerat operatus “had been operated.” The base verb operare belongs to the general Latin vocabulary for work and operation, with cognates and related forms appearing in various Romance languages.

Usage notes: as a finite, past-tense form, operabatur is common in classical and medieval Latin prose and can appear in descriptions of machinery, processes, or procedures in which some operation was in progress at a past time.