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PlainSpell

reniform

ren·i·form/ˈɹɛnəˌfɔɹm/adjective

reniform is an adjective meaning “Synonym of kidney-shaped (“having an approximately circular or elongated ovoid shape with an inward curve or indentation on one side”)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-N-I-F-O-R-M and has 3 syllables (ren·i·form), and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does reniform mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Synonym of kidney-shaped (“having an approximately circular or elongated ovoid shape with an inward curve or indentation on one side”).

    intussusception with a reniform appearance

  2. 2

    Of a leaf: kidney-shaped, with the petiole attached at the notch.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce reniform?

  • UK /ˈɹɛnɪfɔːm/
  • UK /ˈɹiː-/
  • US /ˈɹɛnəˌfɔɹm/

Reniform has 3 syllables, split ren·i·form in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-reniform.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

How common is reniform?

Reniform appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 107,757th 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).

Reniform in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense synonym of kidney-shaped – see also kidney-shaped:

LanguageWords
Frenchréniforme
Germannierig
Spanishreniforme, arriñonado

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 reniform come from?

Learned borrowing from Latin rēnis (the genitive singular of rēn (“kidney”); see further at that entry) + English -form (suffix meaning ‘having the form or shape of’), modelled after New Latin rēnifōrmis (“of seeds: kidney-shaped”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).