Definition of "trepan"

trepan¹

/tɹɪˈpæn/

noun
plural trepans
1. A tool used to bore through rock when sinking shafts.
2. (medicine) A surgical instrument used to remove a circular section of bone from the skull; a trephine.
verb
third-person singular simple present trepans, present participle trepanning or trepaning, simple past and past participle trepanned or trepaned
1. (transitive, manufacturing, mining) To create a large hole by making a narrow groove outlining the shape of the hole and then removing the plug of material remaining by less expensive means.
2. (medicine) To use a trepan; to trephine.

trepan²

/tɹɪˈpæn/

noun
plural trepans
1. (archaic) A trickster.
  Quotations
  He had been from the beginning a spy and a trepan.
  1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 17, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
2. (archaic) A snare; a trapan.
  Quotations
  Snares and trepans that common life lays in its way.
  1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, 6th edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] J[ames] Bettenham, for Jonah Bowyer, […], published 1727
verb
third-person singular simple present trepans, present participle trepanning, simple past and past participle trepanned
1. (archaic) To ensnare; to seduce, to trick.
  Quotations
  O Fie—Sir Peter—would you have ME join in so mean a Trick? to trepan my Brother too?
  1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, IV.iii
  Among his men I recollected one Cordus, a gentleman's ſon from Hamburgh, in which character I had known him, and who had been trepanned into the Weſt India Company's ſervice by the crimps or ſilver-coopers as a common ſoldier.
  1796, J[ohn] G[abriel] Stedman, chapter XVII, in Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America; […], volume II, London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], and J. Edwards, […], page 28
  […] a post-chaise, into which he had so infamously trepanned me […]
  1798 Charlotte Turner Smith: The Young Philosopher. Vol.4, Chapter 9.
  “In the plain meaning of the word, sir,” said I. “I was on my way to your house, when I was trepanned on board the brig, cruelly struck down, thrown below, and knew no more of anything till we were far at sea. I was destined for the plantations; a fate that, in God’s providence, I have escaped.”
  1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886

Definition of "trepan"

trepan1

noun

verb

trepan2

noun

Quotations

Quotations

verb

Quotations

trepan¹

trepan²