rognonn.

Etymology: < French rognon kidney (end of the 12th cent. in Old French as roignon , originally denoting a human kidney, later also a kidney used as food), rounded outcrop of rock or stones surrounded by a glacier or an ice field (1779 in H.-B. de Saussure, so called on account of the shape of the outcrop), variant (with assimilation of the vowel in the first syllable) of Old French reignon kidney (late 12th cent.) < an unattested post-classical Latin form *renion- , *renio < classical Latin ren (see reins n.) + -iō -ion suffix¹. Compare Old Occitan renhon , ronho , ronhon (all 13th cent.), Catalan ronyó (13th cent.; also (now regional) renyó , rinyó (both 14th cent.)), Spanish riñón (a1418; c1275 as †reñon ; > Portuguese rinhão (a1720; now archaic or nonstandard; the usual Portuguese word for the kidney, both as organ and as an item of food, is rim reins n.)), all in sense ‘kidney’; compare also Italian rognone kidney used as food (14th cent.; the usual Italian word for the organ is rene : see reins n.). Compare earlier reins n. and discussion at that entry. O.E.D. Suppl. (1982) gives the non-naturalized pronunciation (rǫn^yoṅ) /rɔɲɔ̃/.