sulfurs

Noun

sulfur (usually uncountable, plural sulfurs)

1. (usually) A chemical element with atomic number 16, having a bright yellow color and characteristic smell, used commercially in a variety of products such as insecticides, black powder, and matchsticks.
   • A Dungeon horrible, on all ſides round / As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from thoſe flames / No light, but rather darkneſs viſible / […] but torture without end / Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed / With ever-burning Sulphur unconſum’d: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

   Synonyms:

   brimstone, devil's gold

   1. (usually) The element symbolically associated with hellfire or damnation, or in alchemy, the fiery principle present in all things.
      • “She shall be blasted like a riven oak! Drowned in sulphur! Torn by whirlwinds!”1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 68
2. (countable, uncountable, usually) A yellowish green colour, like that of sulfur.
3. (usually) Any of various pierid butterflies of the subfamily Coliadinae, especially the sulfur-coloured species.

See all 7 meanings of sulfur