Also 7–8 terebrum. [L. terebra, terebrum a borer.]
† 1. An instrument for boring; in Surgery, a trephine, or the boring part of it; also, a miner’s drill. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Tirefond de Chirurgien, a Surgeons Terebra, or Piercer; an Instrument which he puts vnto diuers vses.
1704. Ray, Disc., II. v. (1713), 224. This ends at the Place which the Workmen pierce with their Terebra.… The Terebra sometimes finds great Trees.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Terebra, or Terebrum,… also an Instrument to engrave on Stones.
1750. Mem. Roy. Acad. Surg. Paris, I. 162. Instruments hitherto used to raise the bones of the cranium depressed on the dura mater are … the Terebra.
1787. C. B. Trye, in Med. Commun., II. 149. I made several perforations in the cranium with the terebra of the trephine.
2. Ent. The modified ovipositor of certain female insects, esp. terebrant Hymenoptera, with which they puncture leaves, fruit, etc., in order to insert their eggs.
[1691. Ray, Creation, II. (1692), 78. The hollow Instrument (terebra he [Malpighi] calls it, and we may English it piercer) wherewith many Flies are provided.]
1713. Derham, Phys.-Theol., VIII. vi. 429. The … Oak-Ball Ichneumon strikes its Terebra into an Oak-Apple.
