Law Dictionary of Legal Terminology

OPERATIVE

OPERATIVE. A workman; one employed to perform labor for another.

2. This word is used in the bankrupt law of 19th August, 1841, s. 5, which directs that any person who shall have performed any labor as an operative in the service of anly bankrupt shall be entitled to receive the full amount of wages due to him for such labor, not exceeding twenty-fivedo llars; provided that such labor shall have been performed within six months next before the bankruptcy of his employer.

3. Under this act it has been decided that an apprentice who had done work beyond a task allotted to him by his master, commonly called overwork, under an agreement on the part of the master to pay for such work, was entitled as an operative. 1 Penn. Law Journ. 368. See 3 Rob. Adm. R. 237; 2 Cranch, 240 270.