Actually, the Java Language Specification does not call new
an operator. It writes:
38 tokens, formed from ASCII characters, are the operators.
Operator: = > < ! ~ ? : -> == >= <= != && || ++ -- + - * / & | ^ % << >> >>> += -= *= /= &= |= ^= %= <<= >>= >>>=
new
is simply a keyword that occurs in a class instance creation expression.
I consider this a reasonable definition, as an operator would take operands (or, from the perspective of source code, appear next to an expression), but the class name followed by the argument list is not by itself a valid expression nor it is evaluated to produce a value at runtime.
I suspect the practice of calling new
an operator originates from C++, where the new operator could be overloaded independent of the constructor call, to customize the memory allocation strategy. Managed languages such as Java or C# no longer allow such a separation, but the term operator has stuck.
For instance, the C# language specification actually talks about a new
operator, and specifies its precedence, but when actually specifying its meaning only talks about the 3 expression types than can be formed with a new keyword (object creation, array creation, and delegate creation expressions).