"white, crystalline substance discovered in gallstones," 1913, abstracted from cholesterol.
Entries linking to sterol
cholesterol n.
white, solid substance present in body tissues, 1894, earlier cholesterin, from French cholestrine (Chevreul, 1827), from Latinized form of Greek khole "bile" (from PIE root *ghel- (2) "to shine," with derivatives denoting "green, yellow," and thus "bile, gall") + steros "solid, stiff" (from PIE root *ster- (1) "stiff"). So called because originally found in gallstones (Conradi, 1775). The name was changed to the modern form (with chemical suffix -ol, denoting an alcohol) after the compound was discovered to be a secondary alcohol.
aldosterone n.
isolated 1953, named with -one + combining forms of aldehyde and sterol.