Kid'ney, n.

n.; pl. KID'NEYS. [Probably from A-S. quidh, cwidih, Icel. qvidr, O. H. Ger. quiti, Goth. qvithus, belly, womb, and Eng. nigh. See KITE.]

1Sense 1. (Anat.) An oblong, flattened gland, situated at each side of the lumbar vertebræ, and surrounded with an abundant fatty tissue. They are two in number, of a reddish-brown color, and constitute the secretory organs of the urine. Dunglison.

2Sense 2. Habit; disposition; sort; kind. [Colloq.]

There are in later times other decrees, made by popes of another kidney. Barring.

There are 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; but 'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. Burns.

This use of the word is probably an imitation and misapprehension of Shakespeare's use of it in the following passage:—

“And then to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes, that fretted in their own grease: think of that, a man of my kidney; think of that, that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw.”

But Falstaff's meaning is,—a man whose kidneys are as fat as mine, a man as fat as myself; not, a man of my character, qualities, or humor.

3Sense 3. A waiting-servant. [Cant.] Tatler.