brimstone
/ˈbɹɪmstoʊn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.82 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "[W]hen he [the Devil] is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss […]"
- "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."
- "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."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: brymston, brynstān
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈbɹɪmstoʊn/
- British English: /ˈbɹɪmstəʊn/