sulphur

English

Noun

sulphur (countable and uncountable, plural sulphurs)

1. Alternative spelling of sulfur

Derived terms

Verb

sulphur (third-person singular simple present sulphurs, present participle sulphuring, simple past and past participle sulphured)

1. Alternative spelling of sulfur

Usage notes

• This is the traditional popular spelling in the UK and India, and an alternative spelling in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. However, it is considered non-standard in scientific contexts, as the IUPAC has only approved the spelling sulfur.

References

Anagrams

• uphurls

Latin

Latin Wikipedia has an article on:

sulphur

Wikipedia ^la

Alternative forms

• sulpur (archaic)
• sulfur (late-Classical)

Etymology

From a Hellenisation of earlier sulpur, from the root *selp- (“fat, oil”). Cognate with English salve, Sanskrit सर्पिस् (sarpís, “cleaned melted butter”), सृप्र (sṛprá, “greasy, smooth”), Tocharian B ṣalype (“ointment”), and perhaps ἔλπος (élpos, “?olive oil, fat”) or Ancient Greek ὄλπη (ólpē, “flask for oil”).

According to De Vaan citing Szemerényi, perhaps from an s-stem Proto-Indo-European *sélpos. However, De Vaan finds both the -él- > -ól- and -os > -ur changes to be irregular (for -ol- > -ul- see sulcus), adding that perhaps it comes from Proto-Italic *solpor, from an r/n-stem Proto-Indo-European *sólpr̥ instead.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈsul.pʰur/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈsul.fur/,

Noun

sulphur n (genitive sulphuris); third declension

1. sulfur, brimstone
2. lightning

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Descendants

References

• “sulphur”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sulphur”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

Middle English

Alternative forms

• sulphre, sulphure, sulphour, sulpher, sulpur, sulfur, sulfurre, sulfer, soulphre, soulfre, solfre, soufur, soufre

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman sulfre, from Latin sulfur.

Noun

sulphur (plural sulphurs)

1. sulfur

Descendants

• English: sulphur, sulfur

References

• “sulphur, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.