kidney

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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɪdni/, [ˈkɪdnɪi̯]

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• Rhymes: -ɪdni
• Hyphenation: kid‧ney

kidney (plural kidneys)

2. An organ in the body that filters the blood, producing urine.
   • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 124:

     The liver and the kidneys of animals have long been gastronomically popular for their aphrodisiac properties.

   • 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):

     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.

3. This organ (of an animal) cooked as food.
4. (figuratively, dated) Constitution, temperament, nature, type, character, disposition. (usually used of people)
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:

     […] think of that, – a man of my kidney, – think of that, […]

   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1920, T.S. Eliot, A Cooking Egg‎^[2]:

     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.

5. (obsolete, slang) A waiter.
   • 1709, Richard Steele, The Tatler‎^[3], volume 1:

     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; […]

• rein
• nephros
• ren

• urinary tract

• renal
• suprarenal

• Barnhart, Robert and Steinmetz, Sol, editors (1988), “kidney”, in The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology‎^[4], Bronxville, N.Y.: The H. W. Wilson Co., →ISBN, →OCLC, page 564, column 2.
• Onions, C[harles] T., Friedrichsen, G. W. S., and Burchfield, R[obert] W., editors (1966), “kidney”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology‎^[5], Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 505, column 1; reprinted 1994.

• dinkey