ergosterol
noun
ergosterol is a noun meaning “The steroid precursor of vitamin D₂. It is found in cell membranes of fungi, and is their functional equivalent of cholesterol. It is also found in…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-R-G-O-S-T-E-R-O-L, and it appears about once in every 38 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ergosterol is ergosterols.
What does ergosterol mean?
noun
- 1
The steroid precursor of vitamin D₂. It is found in cell membranes of fungi, and is their functional equivalent of cholesterol. It is also found in the membranes of some protists.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of ergosterol
- ergosterols plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ergosterol?
Ergosterol appears about once in every 38 million words in written English, the 189,524th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Ergosterol in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense steroid precursor of vitamin D2:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ergostérol |
| German | Ergosterin, Ergosterol |
| Portuguese | ergosterol |
| Spanish | ergosterol |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ergosterol come from?
From French ergot + sterol.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).