operate Copy link Outline I. To act, exert power upon anythingII. In medicine, to perform an operation in surgeryIII. Also medical, to take effect (of medicine) • operate: I. To act, exert power upon anything: perh. mŏveo, impello. v. to influence. II. In medicine, to perform an operation in surgery: sĕco, ui, ctum, 1 (with the knife): no one before Marius is said to have been o.d on without being tied, (nemo) ante Marium solutus dicitur esse sectus, Cic. Tusc. 2, 22, 55: to o. with actual cautery and knife, urere atque s., id. Ph. 8, 5, 15. Other phrr. are: manu curare, Cels. 7, init. (comprising the whole of surgery proper), scalpellum admovere (to employ the knife), ib. 7, 2, med.; or scalpellum adhibere, ib. 7, 20, init.; scalpello incidere (partem corporis), ib. 7, 4; aperire (to lay open with the knife), ib. 7, 19. (Various painful ways of operating are enumerated, Sen. Prov. 3, 2, radere ossa et legere, venas extrahere, membra amputare.) III. Also medical, to take effect (of medicine): expr. by făcio, effĭcax, prōsum: the mixture o.s exceedingly well, facit commode compositio, Col. 7, 5, med.: if the medicine have not o.d, *si minus medicamentum profuerit: the medicine has not o.d, *medicamentum nil profuit: where the sense is, to open the bowels, use alvum dejicio (duco): cf. Cato R. R. 148, ea re tot res sunt, ut bene dejicias, so many ingredients, in order that the medicine may o. well (v. opening, adj.). Phr.: so powerfully did the medicine o., tanta vis medicaminis erat, Curt. 3, 6, ad fin. (Operor, 1, in this sense, late: the poison o.s, venenum o., Lampr. Com. 17.)