kidney
Plural: kidneys
Noun
- One of a pair of organs that filter blood.
- either of two bean-shaped excretory organs that filter wastes (especially urea) from the blood and excrete them and water in urine
- "urine passes out of the kidney through ureters to the bladder"
- An organ in the body that filters the blood, producing urine.
- This organ (of an animal) cooked as food.
- Constitution, temperament, nature, type, character, disposition. (usually used of people)
- A waiter.
Examples
- He played KIDNEY, proving that even anatomical terms can be high-scoring Scrabble words.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English kedney, kydeney, from earlier kidnēre, kidenēre (“kidney”), of obscure origin and formation. Probably a compound consisting of Middle English *kid, *quid (“belly, womb”), from Old English cwiþ, cwiþa (“belly, womb, stomach”) + Middle English nēre (“kidney”), from Old English *nēora (“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 nere, neir (“kidney”), Saterland Frisian Njuure (“kidney”), Dutch nier (“kidney”), German Niere (“kidney”), Danish nyre (“kidney”), Norwegian nyre (“kidney”), Swedish njure (“kidney”), Ancient Greek νεφρός (nephrós).
Alternate etymology traces the first element to Old English *cydde (“sack, belly, 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”)). More at codpiece.
Scrabble Score: 14
kidney: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordkidney: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
kidney: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary