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Origin and history of trepan

trepan(v.)

c. 1400, trepanen, "bore small holes in the skull," from Old French trépaner (14c.), from trepan (n.), the name of the tool with which it was done, from Medieval Latin trepanum "a saw for cutting out small pieces of bone from the skull," from Greek trypanon "a borer, an auger, a carpenter's tool; a surgeon's trepan," from trypan "to bore through." The noun in English later was extended to other boring instruments or machines.

The Greek verb is related to trypē "hole" (cognate with Old Church Slavonic truplu "hollow"), which is reconstructed to be from PIE *root *tere- (1) "to rub, turn." Related: Trepanned; trepanning; trepanation.

also from c. 1400

Entries linking to trepan

trephine(n.)

an improved kind of trepan, 1620s, from French trephine, which is said to be from Latin tres fines "three ends," but perhaps rather an arbitrary diminutive of trepan. As a verb from 1804. Related: Trephining; trephination.

*tere-(1)

*terə-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to rub, turn," with derivatives referring to twisting, also to boring, drilling, piercing; and to the rubbing of cereal grain to remove the husks, and thus to threshing.

It might form all or part of: atresia; attorn; attorney; attrition; contour; contrite; detour; detriment; diatribe; drill (v.) "bore a hole;" lithotripsy; return; septentrion; thrash; thread; thresh; throw; threshold; trauma; trepan; tribadism; tribology; tribulation; trite; triticale; triturate; trout; trypsin; tryptophan; turn.

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit turah "wounded, hurt;" Greek teirein "to rub, rub away;" Latin terere "to rub, thresh, grind, wear away," tornus "turning lathe;" Old Church Slavonic tiro "to rub;" Lithuanian trinu, trinti "to rub," Old Irish tarathar "borer," Welsh taraw "to strike."

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    Trends of trepan

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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