Definition of "trepan" [tre•pan]

• A rock-boring tool used in mining for sinking shafts. (noun)
• Medicine A trephine. (noun)
• To bore (a shaft) with a trepan. (verb-transitive)
• Medicine To trephine. (verb-transitive)
• To trap; ensnare. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "From the distracted and despairing man whom love and longing trepan from the lover under passion’s ban the prisoner of transport and distraction from this Kamar al-Zaman son of Shahriman to the peerless one of the fair Houris the pearl-union to the Lady Budur daughter of King Al Ghayur"
• "The "bizarre bits" on display here include a bunch of medical specimens and instruments, such as the smallpox scab, various saws used for amputations and neurosurgery, and a trepan, a grotesque device used to perforate the skull, which was believed to aid in treating mental illness, epilepsy and migraines."
• "Relatively humane compared to the older method of using a hammer that would trepan the animal."