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''brimstone'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

brimstone - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

brimstone (countable and uncountable, plural brimstones)

  • (biblical) The sulfur of hell; hell, damnation.
    • ✤ For griefe thereof, and diuelish despight,/From his infernall fournace forth he threw/Huge flames, that dimmed all the heauens light,/Enrold in duskish smoke and brimstone blew.1
    • ✤ And thus I sawe the horses in the vision, and them that sate on them, hauing brest-plates of fire and of Iacinct, and brimstone, & the heades of the horses were as the heads of Lions, and out of their mouthes issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone.2
    • ✤ Till, as a signal giv’n, th’ uplifted Spear/Of their great Sultan waving to direct/Thir course, in even ballance down they light/On the firm brimstone, and fill all the Plain;/A multitude.3
    • ✤ [W]hen he [the Devil] is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss […]4
    • ✤ But the sulphurous brimstone which burns in hell is a substance which is specially designed to burn for ever and for ever with unspeakable fury.5
  • (archaic) Sulfur.
    • ✤ Weel I wot I wad be broken if I were to gie sic weight to the folk that come to buy our pepper and brimstone, and suchlike sweetmeats.6
    • ✤ Don’t think, young man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone and molasses, just to purify them.7
  • (obsolete) A whore.
    • ✤ I went to the park, picked up a low Brimstone, called myself a Barber, & agreed with her for Sixpence, went to the bottom of the park, arm in arm, & dipped my machine in the Canal […].8
  • (archaic) Used attributively as an intensifier in exclamations.
    • ✤ You are a brimstone pig. You’re a head of swine!9
    • ✤ You’re a brimstone idiot.9
    • ✤ I made a speaking trumpet of my hands and commenced to whoop “Ahoy!” and “Hello!” at the top of my lungs. […] The Colonel woke up, and, after asking what in brimstone was the matter, opened his mouth and roared “Hi!” and “Hello!” like the bull of Bashan.10
  • The butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni of the Pieridae family.
    • ✤ A brimstone butterfly flirted among the purple shadows under the palms.11
  • (Internet slang) Online content of exceptionally poor quality, lower than coal.
    • ✤ Antonym: gemerald

Etymology

From Middle English brymston, brimston, bremston, forms of brinston, brenston, bernston, from Old English brynstān (“brimstone”, literally “burn-stone”), equivalent to burn +‎ stone. Cognate with Scots brunstane (“brimstone”), Icelandic brennisteinn (“sulfur/sulphur, brimstone”), German Bernstein (“amber”). Compare also brimfire. More at burn, stone. Although once a synonym for sulfur, the word is now largely restricted to poetic and Biblical usage.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈbɹɪmstəʊn/
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈbɹɪmstoʊn/
  • IPA: (obsolete)/ˈbɹɪmstən/12
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 9:17: ↩

  3. 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC: ↩

  4. 1854, Charles Dickens, “Explosion”, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, 2nd book (Reaping), page 212: ↩

  5. 1916 December 29, James Joyce, chapter III, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC, page 138: ↩

  6. 1816, [Walter Scott], The Antiquary. […], volume, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC: ↩

  7. 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC: ↩

  8. 1763, James Boswell, edited by Gordon Turnbull, London Journal 1762-1763, Penguin, published 2014, page 237: ↩

  9. 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC: ↩ ↩2

  10. 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC: ↩

  11. 1954, Ian Fleming, “Passionate Leave”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 242: ↩

  12. Jespersen, Otto (1909), A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)‎, volume I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 4.412, page 128. ↩

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