progesterone

Etymology

It is a blend from English progestin + luteosterone.^[2][3][4] The OED compares German Progesteron, published by W. M. Allen and others in a German journal in August 1935, and thinks the word was coined in English and German at the same time;^[2] Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford take the English word from the German one.^[5][6] Progestin, from 1930, is formed from the first part of progestational and -in;^[2] Etymonline explains it as pro- and Latin gestō (“to carry about”), the source of gestation, for a substance that favours pregnancy.^[5] The second part, Luteosteron, was formed from corpus luteum, sterol and -one.^[3][6][4] The American Heritage Dictionary and Collins instead analyse the word as the prefix pro- with parts of gestation and sterol and the suffix -one.^[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A steroid hormone of the corpus luteum that prepares the uterus for pregnancy: 1935, in a paper by W. M. Allen and others in Nature.^[2] Etymonline and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged give the same year.^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

The name replaced progestin, which first named the hormone of the corpus luteum (1930) and later came to mean any progestogen.^[2] The OED's definition adds the placenta as a second source of the hormone, and its synthetic production.^[2] The Merriam-Webster Unabridged describes it as a precursor of the corticoid and androgenic hormones and notes its use in medicine.^[10]

Timeline

• 1935 – a steroid hormone of the corpus luteum that prepares the uterus for pregnancy.^[2][5][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A female steroid hormone, produced chiefly by the corpus luteum and the placenta or made synthetically, that prepares the lining of the uterus for a fertilized egg and maintains pregnancy.^{[2][8][10][6]}

Word family

• progestational

Related words

• progestin
• progestogen
• gestation
• luteosterone

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster