Other forms: kidneys
A kidney is one of the two organs that clean your blood, and you can donate one. Kidney failure, a kidney transplant, kidney stones.
They filter the entire blood supply many times a day and control water, salt and blood pressure as well. One healthy kidney does the work of two, which is why living donation is possible. Note kidney beans, named for the shape; and that the origin of the word is uncertain.
1nounkidneyOne of the two organs that filter the blood.
“He gave one of his kidneys to his sister, who needed a transplant.”
kidney is an organ.
Middle English kidenere is of uncertain formation, possibly from a word for a sack plus an old word for a kidney.
Middle English
kideney
English, today
kidney
Built from
From Middle English kideney, kydeney, alteration of earlier kidenere (“kidney”) after ey (“egg”), of unknown 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”), gmq-osw vigniauri (“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 negʷʰrós (“kidney”). If so, then related to dialectal near (“kidney”), Scots neir (“kidney”), stq Njuure (“kidney”), West Frisian nier (“kidney”), Dutch nier (“kidney”), German Niere (“kidney”), Danish nyre (“kidney”), Norwegian nyre (“kidney”), Swedish njure (“kidney”), Ancient Greek νεφρός (“kidney”). An alternate etymology traces the first element to Old English cwiþ, cwiþa (“belly, womb, stomach”), though the loss of in a stressed syllable is difficult to explain.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA