Meaning

noun a B-complex vitamin that is a constituent of lecithin; essential in the metabolism of fat

originEtymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃- Proto-Hellenic *kʰolā́ Ancient Greek χολή (kholḗ)der. English choline Coined from Ancient Greek χολή (kholḗ, “bile”). The chemical compound was first isolated by Adolph Strecker from pig and ox bile (hence the name) in 1862. It was also named neurine when chemically synthesized by Oscar Liebreich in 1865, until 1898 when shown to be identical to choline.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0