Standard Lemma guide

cortisone

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈkɔː.tɪ.zəʊn/
  • General-American: /ˈkɔɹ.tɪˌsoʊn/
  • General-American: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: K AO1 R T AH0 Z OW2 N Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A corticosteroid hormone, closely related to corticosterone, produced by the adrenal cortex. One of the glucocorticoids, it is also made synthetically for use as an anti-inflammatory and antiallergy agent. 17-hydroxy-11-dehydrocorticosterone, with formula C21H28O5.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Qualifier: steroids

Topics: biochemistry, biology, chemistry, medicine, microbiology, natural-sciences, pharmacology, physical-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

a corticosteroid hormone (trade name Cortone Acetate) normally produced by the adrenal cortex; is converted to hydrocortisone

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: Cortone Acetate

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: corticosteroid, corticoid, adrenal cortical steroid, ketosteroid

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- Proto-Indo-European *(s)kert- Proto-Indo-European *(s)kort-ek-sder. Latin cortexder. English cortico- Proto-Indo-European *ǵhelh3- Proto-Hellenic *kholā́ Ancient Greek χολή (kholḗ) Proto-Indo-European *ster-der. Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós) French cholestérine French cholestérolbor. English cholesterol English sterol German Ketonbor. English ketone English -one English -sterone English corticosterone English cortisone Shortening of corticosterone.

Across languages

Translations

16 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: كُورْتِيزُون (kurtizūn) — corticosteroid hormone
  • Asturian: cortisona — corticosteroid hormone
  • Catalan: cortisona — corticosteroid hormone
  • Chinese Mandarin: 可的松 (kědìsōng) — corticosteroid hormone
  • Chinese Mandarin: 考的松 (kǎodìsōng) — corticosteroid hormone
  • Czech: kortizon — corticosteroid hormone
  • Finnish: kortisoni — corticosteroid hormone
  • French: cortisone — corticosteroid hormone
  • Galician: cortisona — corticosteroid hormone
  • German: Cortison — corticosteroid hormone
  • German: Kortison — corticosteroid hormone
  • Italian: cortisone — corticosteroid hormone
  • Japanese: コルチゾン (koruchizon) — corticosteroid hormone
  • Portuguese: cortisona — corticosteroid hormone
  • Russian: кортизо́н (kortizón) — corticosteroid hormone
  • Spanish: cortisona — corticosteroid hormone