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Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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-sterol

A sterol.

[The second element of cholesterol, the first member of the group to be identified, derived from Greek stereos, stiff or solid.]

The sterols are naturally occurring unsaturated steroid alcohols, typically waxy solids. An example is lanosterol, a precursor in the biosynthesis of cholesterol and a component of lanolin. Sterols that come from plants are collectively called phytosterols (Greek phuton, a plant), examples being ergosterol, from ergot and many other fungi, and sitosterol (Greek sitos, grain, food), a group of sterols obtained from various plant sources, including corn oil.

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