Forms: 7 trafine, trafin, trefine, traphine, 8– trephine. [Orig. trafine, according to the inventor f. L. trēs fīnēs three ends (see quot. 1628), app. formed with reference to trapan, TREPAN sb.1 (to which the later form trephine shows a nearer approach), F. tréphine is from Eng.] An improved form of trepan, with a transverse handle, and a removable or adjustable sharp steel center-pin which is fixed upon the bone to steady the movement in operating.
1628. Woodall, Viaticum, Wks. (1639), 313. The Trafine … an Instrument of my owne composing,… although it may be said to be a derivative or Epitomy of or from the Trapan … I thought fit to put the name of a Trafine upon it (a tribus finibus) from the three ends thereof.
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physic, 172. Raise it with a Trepan, or a Trefine.
1767. Gooch, Treat. Wounds, I. 304. That kind of trepan, called the trephine, is now in general use,… it is more commodious than the other.
1855. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol. (1873), I. I. iv. 70. When by means of a trephine, the depressed portion of bone is cut out, the brain … at once resumes its duties.
transf. 1854. Badham, Halieut., 441. The patient may plunge and writhe, but the operation of trephine goes on, and soon … does the lamprey push his tongue through the bony plates of the skull, and draw it back, with a sample of brains adhering.
b. attrib., as trephine hole, opening, saw (cf. TREPAN sb.1 4).
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Trephine-saw, a crown-saw; a cylindrical saw with a serrated end, to make a circular kerf by the rotation of the saw.
1878. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., I. 220. The trephine opening was filled in by a tough membrane.
1891. W. H. White, in Jrnl. Physiol., XII. 247. The same sized trephine hole was made in the skull.
