kidney Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun 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

WordNet

Kid"ney noun
Etymology
OE. kidnei, kidnere, from Icel. koir belly, womb (akin to Goth. gipus, AS. cwip womb) + OE. nere kidney; akin to D. nier, G. niere, OHG. nioro, Icel. nra, Dan. nyre, Sw. njure, and probably to Gr. () Cf. Kite belly.
Wordforms
plural Kidneys
Definitions
  1. (Anat.) A glandular organ which excretes urea and other waste products from the animal body; a urinary gland. ✍ In man and in other mammals there are two kidneys, one each side of vertebral column in the back part of the abdomen, each kidney being connected with the bladder by a long tube, the ureter, through which the urine is constantly excreted into the bladder to be periodically discharged.
  2. Habit; disposition; sort; kind. Shak.
    There are in later other decrees, made by popes of another kidney. Barrow.
    Millions in the world of this man's kidney. L'Estrange.
    Your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence. Burns.
    ✍ This use of the word perhaps arose from the fact that the kidneys and the fat about them are an easy test of the condition of an animal as to fatness. "Think of that, -- a man of my kidney; -- . . . as subject to heat as butter." Shak.
  3. A waiter. Old Cant Tatler.

Webster 1913