【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).

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

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.

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

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

In extended use  【prick】 usually stresses either the sharp sting that accompanies the pricking of the skin or the delicacy and clearness of a pattern or design. 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 or of the use of a rotary tool (as an auger or gimlet) 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.

【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.

In their extended senses  【bore】  and  【drill】  (see also PRACTICE ) carry differing connotations,  【bore】 suggesting the slow or continuous forcing of a passage through and  【drill】 , the forced entrance of something through a succession of efforts or through persistence.