trephine
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of trephine
1620–30; spelling variant of trefine, originally trafine, blend of trapan (variant of trepan 1 ) and Latin phrase trēs fīnēs three ends (the inventor's explanation)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We aspirated all brain tissue inside the trephine.
From Nature ● Mar. 21, 2017
He excises the cornea with a circular saw called a trephine, whose diameter is a shade more than one-sixth of an inch.
From Time Magazine Archive
The sharp point of this she pressed into her scalp over a trephine hole.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is even probable that the trephine holes found in prehistoric skulls 50,000 years old were made for curative purposes.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was round, the end of his index finger entered it readily, and it was just such an opening as would have been produced by the crown of a trephine.
From Fasting Girls Their Physiology and Pathology by William Alexander Hammond
But with items such as a circa 1500 Austrian amputation saw and trephined Peruvian skulls from 4,000 years ago, upon which cranial surgery was performed, it’s aware of its yuck factor.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 11, 2018
Dr. Erich Kosterlitz had trephined the girl as a last effort to cure her of epilepsy.
From Time Magazine Archive
The wound was dressed and trephined, and the results awaited.
From The Lost Art of Reading by Gerald Stanley Lee
If the symptoms point to suppuration having occurred between the bone and the dura, the skull should be trephined and further bone removed with the rongeur forceps as may be required.
From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Alexander Miles
One buphthalmic eye trephined by myself gave good results.
From Glaucoma A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 by Willis O. Nance
The museum’s artist-in-residence program features forensic sculptor Kathleen Gallo, who has given faces to the ancients who endured trephining.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 5, 2021
"The operation of trephining the skull, which was widely and successfully practiced by primitive peoples in nearly all parts of the world, may be considered the highest achievement of prehistoric surgeons."
From Time Magazine Archive
Once the trephining of the skull was over . . . my mood underwent a change.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the other hand, trephining may with advantage be employed instead of iridectomy for cases difficult or dangerous under the latter method.
From Glaucoma A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 by Willis O. Nance
In former days trephining was a much more frequent operation than it is now, and apparently more successful.
From A Manual of the Operations of Surgery For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners by Joseph Bell
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