Trephination

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medical procedure involving cutting or drilling a hole in the skull to relieve pressure or treat medical conditions
2. An operation where a portion of the bone in the skull is removed as a treatment method for certain health issues
3. The act of creating an opening in the skull bone as a therapeutic intervention for cranial problems

Etymology: Trephination is a plain formation: the noun "trephine" (a surgical saw for cutting a disc of bone out of the skull) with the suffix "-ation" attached, giving the name for the act of performing that operation. The base word itself goes back to the Latin "trypanum," borrowed from Greek "trypanon," meaning a borer or auger, which is also the root of "trypanosome" and "trepan," a near relative with the same sense of boring into bone. The suffix tells the rest of the story. "-ation" came into English through Old French "-ation" from Latin "-ātiō," a noun-forming ending that turns a verb into the name of the process, so "trephine" plus "-ation" names the action of trephining. Trephination is attested in the same tradition of surgical vocabulary that gave English "trephine" its place in the language, and the word has stayed firmly within medical and surgical writing.

Synonyms: trepanning, burr hole surgery, cranial drilling