Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Steroid
/ˈstɛrɔɪd/noun
Any of a class of compounds sharing a four-ring carbon skeleton, including many hormones.
The Greek roots
στερεός
stereós
solid, firm
εἶδος
eîdos
form, likeness
Literally: “solid-shaped”
The story of the word
The solid in the name is a gallstone. Chevreul isolated a waxy substance from them and called it cholesterine, bile-solid, and when chemists found a family of compounds built on the same skeleton in the 1930s they cut the name down to sterol and then steroid. Stereo, meaning solid sound in three dimensions, is the same first element.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1930s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
cholesterolstereostereotypesterol
In a sentence
The inhaler contains a low dose of steroid.
Two sprinters were disqualified for steroid use.