trephine

/tɹɪˈfaɪn/

trephine noun: a surgical instrument with a cylindrical blade used to remove a circular section of tissue, such as bone or cornea; a trepan.

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Noun

trephine (plural trephines)

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 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!
Synonyms:

trepan

trephine (third-person singular simple present trephines, present participle trephining, simple past and past participle trephined)

(intransitive) To use a trephine during surgery.
- "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."1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula
(transitive) To perforate with a trephine.
- 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.1901 August 16, “Veterinary Departmental Report for May, 1901”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 12, page 382

எலும்புத் துளைப்பி, துரப்பணம்

Noun
plural	trephines
Verb
third-person singular present	trephines
present participle	trephining
past participle	trephined
past	trephined

Borrowed from French tréphine, from Latin trepanum, from Ancient Greek τρύπανον (trúpanon, “auger, borer”). Doublet of trepan.

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

What does trephine mean?: Trephine means a surgical instrument with a cylindrical blade used to remove a circular section of tissue, such as bone or cornea; a trepan.
What is trephine in Tamil?: Trephine in Tamil is எலும்புத் துளைப்பி, துரப்பணம். See Trephine meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is trephine?: Trephine can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce trephine?: Trephine is pronounced /tɹɪˈfaɪn/.
What is the plural of trephine?: The plural of trephine is trephines.

Adapted from Wiktionary: trephine (page history and authors); trephine (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “trephine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trephine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.