sterol

Etymology

It is shortened from English from cholesterol, ergosterol and similar names, whose ending came to be used as a word of its own.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein name only cholesterol.^[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any of a class of solid steroid alcohols: 1913, in the Biochemical Journal.^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also give 1913,^[7][8][6] and Dictionary.com dates it to 1910–15.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word was made as a general name for the class to which cholesterol and ergosterol belong, and it has kept that technical sense.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged adds stigmasterol to the examples and describes the class by its four-ring structure.^[6]

Timeline

• 1913 – any of a class of solid unsaturated steroid alcohols.^[2][8][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (biochemistry) Any of a class of solid, waxy steroid alcohols, such as cholesterol and ergosterol, found in animal and plant lipids.^[4][6][2]

Word family

• lanosterol
• tachysterol
• steroid
• ergosterol
• phytosterol
• sitosterol

Related words

• cholesterol

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House