sulphur
Definitions
General English
- noun a non-metallic element, which is usually found in the form of yellow powder, and smells of rotten eggs
Agriculture
- noun a yellow non-metallic chemical element that is essential to biological life. It is used in the manufacture of sulphuric acid and in the vulcanisation of rubber.
Food
- noun a yellow non-metallic chemical element that is contained in some amino acids and is used in creams to treat some skin disorders
General Science
- chemical symbolS (written as Sulphur)
Electronics
- synonymsulfur
Origin & History of “sulphur”
The origins of Latin sulphur are not known, although it may have links with German schwefel ‘sulphur’. It has spread throughout the romance languages (French soufre, Italian solfo, and, with the addition of Arabic al ‘the’, Spanish azufre), and has been borrowed into Dutch as sulfer and into English (where it eventually replaced the native brimstone (12th c.), etymologically ‘burning stone’) as sulphur.
