sulfur

noun

1. (uncountable, 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:”

   “Sure only that man is mortal; that with the life of one mortal snaps irrevocably the wonderfulest talisman, and all Dubarrydom rushes off, with tumult, into infinite Space; and ye, as subterranean Apparitions are wont, vanish utterly,—leaving only a smell of sulphur!”

   “Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at Ustica, than Vesuvius began to show signs of increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed a strong taste of sulphur in the drinking water; whilst—most dreaded phenomenon of all—the ever-active crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between Naples and Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence.”

   “It went like this: first, we were cavemen, then there was ancient Greece, then Rome burned (cue sulfur-odor FX), then there was the Great Depression, and, finally, we reached the modern age.”

   “Local workers hike up the side of the mountain and down into the crater at the top to harvest its sulfur—a byproduct of the gas that escapes from the volcano’s vents and collects near the shores of an acidic lake at the crater’s center. The chemical is used in industry worldwide, from making matchsticks to vulcanizing rubber, but Ijen’s sulfur goes mostly to local factories, which use it to bleach sugar.”

2. (uncountable, 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.

   ““She shall be blasted like a riven oak! Drowned in sulphur! Torn by whirlwinds!””

3. (countable, uncountable, usually)A yellowish green colour, like that of sulfur.
4. (uncountable, usually)Any of various pierid butterflies of the subfamily Coliadinae, especially the sulfur-coloured species.

adj

1. Of a yellowish green colour, like that of sulfur.
2. Having a characteristic sulfur-like smell, reminiscent of rotten eggs.

   “On the November morning when the sulfur burps began, Derron Borders was welcoming prospective students at the graduate school where he works in New York. […] Sulfur burps appear to be a somewhat rare side effect of semaglutide, tirzepatide, and other drugs in their class, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists.”

verb

1. (transitive)To treat with sulfur, or a sulfur compound, especially to preserve or to counter agricultural pests.