In addition, large-scale climate events like El Nino and La Nina redistribute vast water masses among Earth's ocean, atmosphere and land. Scientists care because, to put movements of Earth's crust into proper context, they need a frame of reference to evaluate them against.
Adj. 1. operant-having influence or producing an effect; many emotional determinants at work; an operant conscience. operative-being in force or having or exerting force; operative regulations; the major tendencies operative in the American political system. 1  Facebook.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In linguistics, a deponent verb is a verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle or passive. A deponent verb has no active forms. 1 Languages with deponent verbs.