Other forms: brimstones
Brimstone is sulphur, especially as a torment in old religious use. Fire and brimstone, a smell of brimstone, brimstone preaching.
Fire and brimstone preaching is the kind that dwells on hell, and the phrase is now used more of the style than of the doctrine. The word is Old English for burn-stone, which is exactly what sulphur does. A brimstone is also a yellow butterfly.
1nounbrimstoneSulphur, especially in religious language.
“The old book described hell as a lake of burning brimstone.”
brimstone is a substance.
Old English brynstan means burn-stone, from brinnan, to burn, plus stan, a stone.
Old English
brynstān — brimstone
Middle English
brymston
English, today
brimstone
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA