Brimstone

Origin

From Middle English brimston, bremston, corrupted 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, brimstone"), German Bernstein ("amber"). Compare also brimfire. More at burn, stone.

Once a synonym for "sulphur," the word is now restricted to Biblical usage.

Adjective

1. Composed of or resembling brimstone; about or pertaining to Hell.'Who walked up Aldersgate-street to some chapel where she comforts herself with brimstone doctrine.' — Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller'A cheerful ballad about a murderer who was afraid to go to bed in the dark because he saw certain brimstone flames around him.' — Thomas Hardy Tess of the d'Urbevilles
• '... he gave vent to a succession of sounds, not unlike the drawing of some eight or ten dozen of long corks, and again asserted his brimstone birth and parentage with great distinctness.' — Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
• 'I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head off.' — Charles Dickens, Bleak House
• 'From his brimstone bed at break of day
  A walking the Devil is gone.' — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Full definition of brimstone

Noun

1. Sulphur.
2. The sulphur of Hell; Hell, damnation.
• 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, Mr. Pratt's Patients Chapter 7, 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.
3. (archaic) Used attributively as an intensifier in exclamations.
• 1852–3, Charles Dickens, Bleak HouseYou are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!
• 1852–3, Charles Dickens, Bleak HouseYou're a brimstone idiot.
4. The butterfly of the Pieridae family.

Derived terms

• fire and brimstone