trephine

noun

tre·​phine ˈtrē-ˌfīn 

: a surgical instrument for cutting out circular sections (as of bone or corneal tissue)

trephine transitive verb

Examples of trephine in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Surgical set Critical items would have included an amputation saw, tourniquet, trephines (for slicing into the skull), bone forceps, a large amputation knife, several smaller knives and suture needles. —Will McCarthy, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 June 2023

Word History

Etymology

earlier trafine, alteration of trapan, variant of trepan entry 2; according to the instrument's originator, suggested by Latin a tribus fīnibus "from the three ends," alluding to the three terminations of the instrument (the two ends of the handle and the cutting end)

Note: The trephine was devised by John Woodall (1570-1643), Surgeon-General of the East India Company. He described it in the second edition of his guide to nautical medicine The Surgeons Mate or Military & Domestique Surgery (London, 1639), p. 313: "…I thought fit here to describe the Trafine, it being an Instrument of my owne composing, which experience will shew, is more compendious and of more facility in the use thereof, for young practitioners in Surgery, then [sic] is the Trapan… and for that it was so fashioned, and first practised by my selfe, I thought fit to put the name of a Trafine upon it (a tribus finibus) from the ends thereof, each being of several uses …." The origin of the form trephine is unclear, though the Oxford English Dictionary, first edition, seems to be incorrect in claiming that it was borrowed from French. It appears in Severall chirurgicall treatises (1676) by the surgeon Richard Wiseman, who preferred the trepan over the trephine, while the French equivalent is apparently not attested before the eighteenth century.

First Known Use

1628, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

trephine

1 of 2 noun

tre·​phine ˈtrē-ˌfīn 

: a surgical instrument for cutting out circular sections (as of bone or corneal tissue)

trephine

2 of 2 transitive verb

tre·​phine ˈtrē-ˌfīn  tri-ˈ 

trephined; trephining

: to operate on with or extract by means of a trephine