Which came first: the kidney bean or the kidney body part?
from sbeak@sopuli.xyz to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 13:03
https://sopuli.xyz/post/33570108

Or did both come from something else? Maybe “kid knee” (small and bent) or, more realistically, it’s something borrowed from another language like Latin or French.

#nostupidquestions

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digger@lemmy.ca on 12 Sep 13:16 next collapse

www.etymonline.com/word/kidney

Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 13:33 next collapse

So, the body part

TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 12 Sep 14:03 next collapse

To save y’all a click, the organ came first, sometime in the 14th century, as a mix of the words for womb and egg. It wasn’t until the 16th century that we see the first recorded use of kidney bean, so the name of the bean references the shape of the organ.

TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip on 12 Sep 17:37 collapse

That’s a pretty solid answer from one perspective. However that still leaves me wondering what the answer would be from an evolutionary perspective. Did early sea creatures already have kidneys?

usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca on 12 Sep 18:31 collapse

Looks like kidneys in vertebrates have been around for close to 400 million years, while legumes only 60 million

onslaught545@lemmy.zip on 12 Sep 18:45 next collapse

Kidney beans are thought to have originated about 8000 years ago, so the organ is definitely older.

TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip on 13 Sep 03:25 collapse

Wow! By several orders of magnitude too. I knew plants came later, but this is a pretty extreme example.

TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip on 13 Sep 03:26 collapse

🫡

sbeak@sopuli.xyz on 12 Sep 14:24 collapse

so womb egg. Interesting.

sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz on 12 Sep 16:39 collapse

Maybe we all evolved from kidney beanz…