What does cholesterin mean?
Cholesterin is the historical name for what is now called cholesterol, a soft, waxy sterol found in every cell of the animal body and especially abundant in nerve tissue, bile, and gallstones. Chemists in the eighteenth century coined the term after isolating the substance from gallstones, combining the Greek root for bile with a suffix indicating a solid fat-like material. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cholesterin was the standard term in chemistry and medicine, appearing in discussions of diet, arterial disease, and laboratory analysis. Over time, the variant spelling "cholesterol" prevailed and became universal in English-language science and everyday health discourse, leaving "cholesterin" as an essentially obsolete synonym. Today it appears mainly in older textbooks, historical papers, and translated literature. Encountering the word is therefore usually a sign of reading scientific writing from a previous era rather than current medical usage, where cholesterol dominates completely.
nounAn obsolete chemical name for cholesterol, a waxy steroid substance found in animal tissues and body fluids, formerly used in scientific and medical writing before "cholesterol" became the standard term.
- The former chemical and medical name for cholesterol, a waxy sterol found in animal tissues, blood, and gallstones; now chiefly historical or encountered in older scientific texts.
"Early twentieth-century physiology texts routinely referred to the fatty deposits in arterial walls as accumulations of cholesterin."
"The nineteenth-century chemist described crystals of cholesterin extracted from human gallstones."
"Older editions of the textbook listed cholesterin among the lipids present in nervous tissue."
Rarely used; as a mass noun referring to a single substance, cholesterin normally appears uncounted in historical texts.
"The study compared the various cholesterins recovered from different tissue extracts."
Before it was called cholesterol, this infamous artery-clogging substance went by a name built from the Greek word for bile — because chemists first isolated it from gallstones.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cholesterin
The word derives from Greek roots: "chole," meaning bile, combined with a suffix associated with solid, fat-like substances, reflecting the fact that the compound was first obtained from gallstones. It was adopted into scientific Latin and then into European vernaculars during the era when organic chemistry was being formalized, roughly the late eighteenth century. The variant "cholesterol," blending the same bile root with elements meaning solid and alcohol-like, eventually displaced cholesterin in standard usage. Cognates sharing the bile root include "cholera," "cholic," and "cholecyst."
Related word forms
How cholesterin is actually used
"Cholesterin" is an archaic form, common in scientific writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but almost entirely displaced by "cholesterol" in modern usage. It survives today mostly in historical texts, translations, and some European-language scientific traditions.
Easily confused with cholesterin
Cholesterol is the standard modern term for the same substance, while cholesterin is its older, largely obsolete synonym retained mainly in historical scientific literature.