act vs operation

act

noun
  • The process of doing something. 

  • A product of a legislative body, a statute. 

  • A display of behaviour. 

  • A display of behaviour meant to deceive. 

  • A division of a theatrical performance. 

  • Something done once and for all, as distinguished from a work. 

  • Any organized activity. 

  • A performer or performers in a show. 

  • A formal or official record of something done. 

  • A thesis maintained in public, in some English universities, by a candidate for a degree, or to show the proficiency of a student. 

  • Something done, a deed. 

verb
  • Of a play: to be acted out (well or badly). 

  • To perform a theatrical role. 

  • To play (a role). 

  • To convey an appearance of being. 

  • To map via a homomorphism to a group of automorphisms (of). 

  • To feign. 

  • To do something. 

  • To have an effect (on). 

  • To behave in a certain manner for an indefinite length of time. 

  • To do something that causes a change binding on the doer. 

operation

noun
  • The method or practice by which actions are done. 

  • The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral. 

  • A procedure for generating a value from one or more other values (the operands); 

  • A military campaign (e.g. Operation Desert Storm) 

  • A planned undertaking. 

  • A business or organization. 

  • a function which maps zero or more (but typically two) operands to a single output value. 

  • The method by which a device performs its function. 

  • A surgical procedure. 

How often have the words act and operation occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )