sterol
/ˈstɛɹɒl/
"sterol" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sterol” is uncommon English (frequency #87,866 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #87,866
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any steroid that contains a hydroxyl group in the 3-position of the A-ring.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sterol · sterol · English
sterol · rank #87,866 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #87,866
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH stomata
Nearest frequency peer: stomata (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “sterol”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- steller
steller
12,137 corpus weight
- sterol
sterol
12,135 corpus weight
- stomata
stomata
12,134 corpus weight
- str8
str8
12,133 corpus weight
- strafe
strafe
12,132 corpus weight
- Strathcona
Strathcona
12,131 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “sterol” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sterol |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈstɛɹɒl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #87,866 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sterol” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sterol is uncommon English at frequency #87,866 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈstɛɹɒl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any steroid that contains a hydroxyl group in the 3-position of the A-ring.".
sterol doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From 1913; back-formation from cholesterol. The correct English form is sterol, spelled S-T-E-R-O-L.
Definition
- 1Any steroid that contains a hydroxyl group in the 3-position of the A-ring.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sterol appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Sterols are found in all animal and plant tissue and play an important role in hormone chemistry.
Research into marine sterols falls neatly into three chronological periods.
Etymology
From 1913; back-formation from cholesterol.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sterol", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).