Brimstone

//ˈbɹɪmstəʊn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The sulfur of hell; hell, damnation. countable, uncountable

    "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."

  2. 2
    an old name for sulfur wordnet
  3. 3
    Sulfur. archaic, countable, uncountable

    "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."

  4. 4
    A whore. countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "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 […]."

  5. 5
    Used attributively as an intensifier in exclamations. archaic, countable, uncountable

    "You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!"

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    The butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni of the Pieridae family. countable, uncountable
  2. 7
    Online content of exceptionally poor quality, lower than coal. Internet, countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
viragoalabasterasphaltbrimcrowfaggot

Example

More examples

"And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth."

Etymology

From Middle English brymston, brimston, bremston, forms of brinston, brenston, bernston, from Old English brynstān (“brimstone”, literally “burn-stone”), equivalent to brian + stone, or 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.

Related phrases

brimstone flowerbrimstone matchfire and brimstonerain fire and brimstone

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.