Cholesterol
/kəˈlɛstərɒl/noun
A waxy lipid present in all animal cell membranes and a precursor of several hormones.
The Greek roots
Literally: “solid bile”
The story of the word
Named for where it was first found. Michel Eugène Chevreul isolated it from gallstones and called it cholestérine, solid bile; the ending shifted to -ol late in the century once chemists established the molecule is an alcohol. Cholḗ, bile, also gave melancholy, black bile, and choleric, which described a temperament under the same four-humour theory. Stereós lives on in stereotype, originally a solid printing plate cast from a mould.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
His cholesterol came down more from the walking than from the diet.
Every cell membrane in your body has cholesterol wedged into it.