curette

Etymology

Borrowed from French curette, from curer (“to clean out, scrape out”).

noun

1. (medicine, dentistry) A hand-held surgical instrument, often with a scoop or hook at its tip, used for cleaning or debriding biological tissue.
   Curettes are used for the subgingival removal of dental deposits and for root planing. They can also be used supragingivally. The working tip of a curette is more slender than that of a scaler. 2008, Cecilia Gorrel, Small Animal Dentistry, Elsevier (Saunders), page 223
   Beginning in the 1880s, the curette quickly became the popular choice for those doctors on the lookout for instrumental aid in cases of pregnancy loss. 2019, Shannon Withycombe, Lost: Miscarriage in Nineteenth-Century America, Rutgers University Press, unnumbered page
   2020, Yu Matsumoto, 10: Bone Curette Handle for Improved Bone Removal in Endoscopic Ear Surgery, Seiji Kakehata, Tsukasa Ito, Daisuke Yamauchi (editors), Innovations in Endoscopic Ear Surgery, Springer, page 86, Curettes with an octagonal-shaped shaft are readily available and widely distributed in Japan.

verb

1. (transitive, medicine) To scrape with a curette.