to donate a kidney
3
4.2
- phrasal verb
- /dəˈneɪt ə ˈkɪdni/
- Specialized
:
donar un riñón
- They are organizing a fundraiser to support those who want to donate a kidney to someone in need.
- donate a kidney to his father
- wants to donate a kidney
Examples
-
As noted earlier, participants exhibited a high degree of altruism and faith and expressed no regrets about donating a kidney.
Academic text (2008) -
And well, I could donate a kidney to my grandma.
Fiction book (1999) -
I could donate a kidney to my grandma.
Fiction book (1999) -
I'm here to donate a kidney.
-
I thought you were donating a kidney or something.
-
Annette is the person who asked if I would donate a kidney to a friend.
Blog text (10) -
Prior to Bean's surgery, he addressed his decision to donate a kidney to Scott.
Blog text (1) -
She decided to donate a kidney to help her brother who needed a transplant.
-
After much thought, he chose to donate a kidney to a close friend suffering from kidney disease.
How Invasive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'donate' (to give voluntarily) + 'kidney' (an organ) yields the sense of giving a kidney to someone else; the article 'a' is semantically empty. A B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer this is about giving one’s kidney, typically via a medical procedure. This construction is cross-linguistically common and follows regular verb + object composition, so it is transparent.
Etymology
Donate a kidney comes from the real act of deciding to donate one of your two kidneys to someone who needs it. Because people can live with one kidney, the strong image of giving an important part of your body explains why it means 'to give one of your kidneys in a medical operation'.