Combining with a steroid hormone and transmitting the signal within the cell to initiate a change in cell activity or function. [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14708019 GOC:signaling ]
Term information
Some steroid hormone receptors reside in the plasma membrane and signal through second messengers or other intracellular signal transduction pathways. For steroid hormone receptors that act in the nucleus to regulate transcription, consider also annotating to the terms: nuclear receptor activity ; GO:0004879' or nuclear receptor transcription coactivator activity ; GO:0030374'.