ren

See also: Appendix:Variations of "ren"

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English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

ren

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹɛn/
• Rhymes: -ɛn

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Latin rēn. Doublet of rein (“kidney”).

Noun

ren (plural renes)

1. (anatomy) A kidney.
   • 1759, Malcolm Flemyng, “Lecture XIX. On the kidneys and urinary bladder. Gravel; calculus.”, in An Introduction to Physiology, Being a Courſe of Lectures Upon the moſt important Parts of the Animal Œconomy: […], London: J. Nourse, →OCLC, page 259:

     Having treated laſt of the expulſion of the inteſtinal fæces, we come next to conſider thoſe organs, which ſeparate and throw off another principal excrementitious matter, to wit, urine. The firſt of which is the renes or kidneys.

   • 1810, William Tully, “On Aliment”, in Proceedings of the Presidents and Fellows of the Connecticut Medical Society, published 1884, page 326:

     We find, however, that the detrita, consisting principally of effete hydrogen and carbon, brought into the circulation by the absorbents, are constantly making their escape from the system by way of the renes, skin, and lungs, in the forms of water, and carbonic-acid.

   • 1858, William Tully, Materia Medica; Or, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, page 1195:

     It would probably have been considered an important omission if I had not mentioned Water as a substance excreted freely by the renes or kidneys.

   • 1893, Henry Power, Leonard William Sedgwick, The New Sydenham Society's Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences:

     Renal. Belonging to the ren or kidney.

Related terms

• renal

Translations

a kidney — see kidney

Etymology 2

Learned borrowing from Egyptian rn,

Noun

ren (plural rens)

1. (Egyptian mythology) One’s name, as part of the soul in ancient Egyptian mythology.
   • 1983, Norman Mailer, Ancient Evenings:

     For the Ren did not belong to the man, but came out of the Celestial Waters to enter an infant in the hour of his birth and might not stir again until it was time to go back.

Anagrams

• ner, NER, NRE, ern, -ern, RNE, ENR, -ner-, Ern