brimstone
English
[edit]_Gonepteryx_rhamni_-_Pr%C3%A9serville_France_-_male_dorsal.jpg)
Etymology
[edit]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
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈbɹɪmstəʊn/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈbɹɪmstoʊn/
- IPA(key): (obsolete) /ˈbɹɪmstən/[1]
Audio (US): (file)
Noun
[edit]brimstone (countable and uncountable, plural brimstones)
- (biblical) The sulfur of hell; hell, damnation.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- 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.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 9:17:
- 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.
- 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:
- 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.
- 1854, Charles Dickens, “Explosion”, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, 2nd book (Reaping), page 212:
- [W]hen he [the Devil] is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss […]
- 1916, 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:
- 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.
- (archaic) Sulfur.
- 1816, [Walter Scott], The Antiquary. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:
- 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.
- 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC:
- Don't think, young man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone and molasses, just to purify them.
- (obsolete) A whore.
- 1763, James Boswell, edited by Gordon Turnbull, London Journal 1762-1763, Penguin, published 2014, page 237:
- 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 […].
- (archaic) Used attributively as an intensifier in exclamations.
- 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
- You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!
- 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
- You're a brimstone idiot.
- 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- 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.
- The butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni of the Pieridae family.
- 1954, Ian Fleming, “Passionate Leave”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 242:
- A brimstone butterfly flirted among the purple shadows under the palms.
- (Internet slang) Online content of exceptionally poor quality, lower than coal.
- Antonym: gemerald
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]sulfur — see sulfur
the sulfur of Hell
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intensifier in exclamations
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butterfly species
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References
[edit]- ^ Jespersen, Otto (1909), A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)[1], volume I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 4.412, page 128.
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Bible
- English terms with quotations
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- English internet slang
- en:Sulfur
- en:Prostitution
- English intensifiers
- en:Pierid butterflies
- English 4chan slang