ren

Forms

rēn m (genitive rēnis); third declension^[1] An older nominative rien, plural riēnēs, appears in a fragment of Plautus quoted by Festus and in later writers.^[2][3][4] The genitive plural is rēnum or rēnium.^[2][5] The grammarians mostly call it masculine, some feminine.^[4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain, and several explanations have been proposed.^[1][4] One derives it from Proto-Italic *hrēn and Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰrḗn (“an internal part of the body”), which would make it a cognate of Ancient Greek φρήν (phrḗn, “midriff, heart, mind”);^[1] Wiktionary notes that the sound changes are uncertain, since a word-initial *gʷʰr- might rather have given ⟨fr⟩ in Latin, as in frendō.^[1] Lewis and Short already compared the Greek plural φρένες (phrénes).^[5]

A second explanation starts from Proto-Indo-European *srḗn (“hip, loins”), with Lithuanian strė́nos (“loins”), Latvian striena (“loins”) and Old Prussian straunay, but initial *sr- seems to have given ⟨fr⟩ in Latin, as in frīgus.^[1] A third, which the TLL tentatively follows after Matasović, compares Old Irish áru (“kidney”), Welsh aren (“kidney”), Hittite ḫaḫri- and Tocharian A āriñc (“heart”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eh₂-r-en- (“an internal organ”).^[1][4] Köbler, after Walde and Hofmann, mentions a possible link with nefrōnēs (“kidneys”).^[6]

In antiquity, Lactantius reports that Varro named the kidneys from the streams (rīvī) of foul fluid that arise from them, and Isidore repeats this.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus, in the Curculio, meaning the kidneys.^[5][6] A fragment of Plautus quoted by Festus has the older nominative rien.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word is nearly always plural, rēnēs, and the OLD heads it so.^[2][4] It is rare in verse, used by Plautus and then from Horace on, and in prose it appears on a curse tablet of the 2nd century BC and in Cicero, who speaks of the fluids that flow from the kidneys.^[4][5] Horace has kidneys “attacked by an acute disease”.^[5] Pliny the Elder records rēnēs as the name of a precious stone, one of the gems named after parts of the body.^[2]

It was also used of the loins, in the Vulgate's command to gird them and in Nemesianus.^[5][3] In Christian Latin the reins became the seat of the feelings and of the inmost mind.^[5][7] Festus says that the ancients called the kidneys nefrundinēs.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of the kidneys.^[5][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of the fluids that flow from the kidneys.^[5][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace writes of kidneys attacked by disease.^[5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder gives it as the name of a precious stone.^[2]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it for the loins.^[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly in the plural) The kidneys.^[2][5][1]
2. The loins.^[5][3]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) The reins as the seat of the feelings; the inmost mind.^[5][7]
4. (plural) The name of a precious stone.^[2]

Word family

• rēnālis
• rēniculus
• rēnunculus

Usage notes

The OLD and Lewis and Short give the word under the plural rēnēs, since the singular is almost never used outside the grammarians and glosses.^[2][5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson