perforate

perforate, puncture, punch, prick, bore, drill mean to pierce through so as to leave a hole.

Perforate, although it can mean to pierce, is used mainly with reference to the action of a machine or instrument which makes usually small round holes in a line or pattern (as for ready tearing, for ornamentation, or for marking with a symbol, device, or name)

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perforate a sheet of postage stamps

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perforate leather for the tips of shoes

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perforate laundry tabs

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a set of pins that perforates an entire sheet at one operation—/!/ Burns

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Puncture suggests the intentional or accidental entrance of a sharp pointed instrument or thing into a tissue, substance, or material

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puncture the arm with a hypodermic needle

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the tire was punctured by a sharp tack

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as the rush began, there flashed through my mind a picture of the ignominious fate which awaited me— punctured to death by umbrellas— Heiser

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Since puncture is often associated with the sudden release of air from an inflated object (as a balloon or a pneumatic tire) the word frequently connotes the sudden deflation of something inflated, unduly pretentious, or pompous

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puncture a scheme

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the effect of Mark Twain's humorous assault on the dignity of General Grant was to reduce him not to the human but to the common level, to puncture the reluctant reverence of the groundlings— Brooks

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Punch is often interchangeable with perforate especially when the use of a mechanical device called a punch is implied

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punch holes in a piece of brass

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Railway conductors are instructed to punch the tickets presented them

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invented a system of dot-and-dash symbols which could be punched out on thick paper and read by touch at night— Time

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Prick implies a piercing with something that has a sharp fine point and therefore suggests a very small hole or a superficial wound

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prick oneself with a needle

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prick out a design on a piece of canvas

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In extended use prick usually stresses either the sharp sting that accompanies the pricking of the skin

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at the older man's laughter he felt his ready pride ruffle and prick— Buck

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or the delicacy and clearness of a pattern or design

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the design is pricked out, so to speak, by the rhymes— Lowes

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Both bore and drill imply the use of a mechanical means in making a hole.

But bore stresses the removal of materials and therefore is employed when there is a suggestion of excavation by hand or machinery

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bore a hole in the ground for a fence post

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bore a tunnel through a mountain

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or of the use of a rotary tool (as an auger or gimlet)

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bore holes in a plank

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or of the use of a boring tool designed for the finishing of roughly made holes by enlarging them and by making them exact in size and true with relation to a specified center line

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bore the barrel of a gun

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Drill commonly implies the use of an instrument or machine equipped with a pointed or sharp rotating tool for boring holes in such hard substances as metal and stone

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drill holes in a steel plate

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a dentist drills a tooth to remove decayed material and form a base for a filling

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In their extended senses bore and drill (see also PRACTICE)carry differing connotations, bore suggesting the slow or continuous forcing of a passage through

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bore one's way through a crowd

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the sound of an airplane bored ominously into the ears of the crowd— Woolf

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and drill, the forced entrance of something through a succession of efforts or through persistence

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is heavily and harshly written, and that is too bad, for the ideas are exciting if the reader can drill through to them— Mailer

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Analogous words: *enter, penetrate, pierce, probe