Trephine
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A surgical instrument with a cylindrical blade used to remove a circular section of tissue, such as bone or cornea; a trepan.
"They removed a core of bone as well as took a bone marrow aspirate from my right hip using a trephine to exclude me having a blood cancer, causing a blood- and serum-stained shirt, a whopping hematoma and a great deal of mental anguish and physical pain in the process!"
- 2 a surgical instrument used to remove sections of bone from the skull wordnet
- 1 To use a trephine during surgery. intransitive
""We shall wait," said Van Helsing, "just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot, for it is evident that the haemorrhage is increasing.""
- 2 operate on with a trephine wordnet
- 3 To perforate with a trephine. transitive
"The pony was cast, and trephined, a middle-sized trephine (or bone saw) being used, which removed a circular piece of bone about the size of a two shilling piece, from the face immediately over the air cavity."
Example
More examples"They removed a core of bone as well as took a bone marrow aspirate from my right hip using a trephine to exclude me having a blood cancer, causing a blood- and serum-stained shirt, a whopping hematoma and a great deal of mental anguish and physical pain in the process!"
Etymology
Borrowed from French tréphine, from Latin trepanum, from Ancient Greek τρύπανον (trúpanon, “auger, borer”). Doublet of trepan.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.