The Collaborative International Dictionary
lipid \lip"id\ n. [Gr. li`pos fat.] (Chem., Biochem.) Any of a variety of oily or greasy organic compounds found as major structural components of living cells; they are insoluble in water but soluble in organic solvents such as alcohol and ether, and include the common fats, cholesterol and other steroids, phospholipids, sphingolipids, waxes, and fatty acids; some of the lipids, together with proteins and carbohydrates, form an essential structural component of living cells, as in the cell walls and membranes. The term lipid refers to its solubility in nonpolar solvents, and has no significance with regard to chemical structure.
Syn: lipide, lipoid.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of phospholipid English)
Usage examples of "phospholipids".
At seventy degrees and below, the phospholipids in the glia in the brain freeze.
Now he remembered what Peerssa had told him about phospholipids in the glia around brain nerves.
Morrison, with some effort, allowed for his own miniaturization and grasped the fact that the bulges were the ends of molecules (of phospholipids, he assumed) that made up the cell membrane.