a. Anat. and Zool. [f. the name of the German embryologist K. F. Wolff (1733–94) + -IAN.] In Wolffian body, the mesonephron or primitive kidney; either of the two renal organs of the embryo of vertebrates; so Wolffian duct.
1844. Hoblyn, Dict. Med., Wolffian Bodies, false kidneys…. The substance by which the kidneys are preceded in the embryo, and which was first remarked by Wolff.
1859. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., V. 594/1. The parovarium is formed out of the Wolffian body.
1879. trans. Haeckel’s Evol. Man, II. 414. The earlier, primitive kidney duct is distinguished as the ‘Wolffian duct.’
