kidney
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English kideney, kydeney, alteration of earlier kidenere (“kidney”) after ey (“egg”), of obscure origin and formation. Probably a compound consisting of Middle English *kidde (“sack”) + Middle English nere (“kidney”). The first element would be from Old English *cydde (“sack, scrotum”), from Proto-Germanic *kuddijā (“sack”), as the terms for testicle and kidney were often interchangeable in Germanic (compare Old High German nioro (“kidney", also "testicle”), Old Swedish vig-niauri (“testicle”)); the second is from Old English *nēora or Middle Low German nêre (“kidney”), from Proto-West Germanic *neurō, from Proto-Germanic *neurô (“kidney”), from Proto-Indo-European *negʷʰr- (“kidney”). If so, then related to dialectal English near (“kidney”), Scots neir (“kidney”), Saterland Frisian Njuure (“kidney”), West Frisian nier (“kidney”), Dutch nier (“kidney”), German Niere (“kidney”), Danish nyre (“kidney”), Norwegian nyre (“kidney”), Swedish njure (“kidney”), Ancient Greek νεφρός (nephrós, “kidney”).
An alternate etymology traces the first element to Old English cwiþ, cwiþa (“belly, womb, stomach”), though the loss of /w/ in a stressed syllable is difficult to explain.
Inflected forms:
form: kidneys
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: An organ in the body that filters the blood, producing urine.
pos: noun
examples: The liver and the kidneys of animals have long been gastronomically popular for their aphrodisiac properties.
An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.
gloss: This organ (of an animal) cooked as food.
pos: noun
gloss: Constitution, temperament, nature, type, character, disposition. (usually used of people)
pos: noun
tags: dated
figuratively
examples: […] think of that, – a man of my kidney, – think of that, […]
Millions in the World of this Man's Kidney
30th June, 1788, Robert Burns, letter to Mr Robert Ainslie
Your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence.
I shall not want Honour in Heaven
 For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney
And have talk with Coriolanus
 And other heroes of that kidney.
gloss: A waiter.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
slang
examples: I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day merely for his charges, to White's under sixpence, nor to the Grecian without allowing him some plain Spanish, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even Kidney at St. James's without clean linen; […]
Synonyms: rein
nephros
ren
Related words: renal
suprarenal
Derived words: acute kidney failure
acute kidney injury
antikidney
artificial kidney
fat-kidneyed
floating kidney
forekidney
head kidney
kidney bean
kidney belt
kidney cancer
kidney corpuscle
kidney dagger
kidney disease
kidney dish
kidneyed
kidney gravel
kidneyless
kidneylike
kidney machine
kidney ore
kidney potato
kidney punch
kidney-punch
kidney-shaped
kidneyshell
kidney stone
kidney vetch
kidneywood
kidneywort
monokidney
pseudokidney
pulpy kidney
sea kidney
skirts and kidneys
steak and kidney pie
xenokidney
Translations: