nephron
ne·phron/ˈnɛˌfɹɑn/noun
nephron is a noun meaning “The basic structural and functional unit of the kidney, which filters the blood in order to regulate chemical concentrations, and thereby produces…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled N-E-P-H-R-O-N and has 2 syllables (ne·phron), and it appears about once in every 20 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of nephron is nephrons.
What does nephron mean?
noun
- 1
The basic structural and functional unit of the kidney, which filters the blood in order to regulate chemical concentrations, and thereby produces urine.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce nephron?
- UK /ˈnɛ.fɹɒn/
- US /ˈnɛˌfɹɑn/
Nephron has 2 syllables, split ne·phron in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-nephron.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of nephron
- nephrons plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is nephron?
Nephron appears about once in every 20 million words in written English, the 136,649th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Nephron in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense basic structural and functional unit of the kidney:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does nephron come from?
From Ancient Greek νεφρός (nephrós, “kidney”) + -on.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).