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trephine.

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

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tɹɪˈfaɪn/
  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 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!
Where this word comes from

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

verb/tɹɪˈfaɪn/
  1. To use a trephine during surgery.

    intransitive
  2. To perforate with a trephine.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.