Sulfur

How to spell sulfur

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sulfur

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sulfur mean?

1. nounA pale yellow non-metallic chemical element, symbol S, known for its smell and its use in matches, fertilisers, and industry.

Sulfur in a sentence

• The factory extracts sulfur from crude oil during refining.

• Gardeners sometimes add sulfur to soil to lower its acidity.

Where does sulfur come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes directly from the Latin sulpur, later spelled sulfur, which named the bright yellow mineral the Romans burned for its acrid fumes; the literal sense was something close to 'burning stone'. English took it up in the late Middle Ages, and for centuries it lived alongside the older native word 'brimstone', which meant exactly the same thing. The familiar spelling with -ph- (sulphur) arose because scholars wrongly assumed a Greek origin and added the Greek-looking 'ph', even though the word was purely Latin. In 1990 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry settled on 'sulfur' with an 'f' as the worldwide scientific standard, restoring the spelling closer to its true Latin root. That tug between the f-spelling and the older ph-spelling is the main thing that trips writers up today.

How the word is built

• sulfur (from Latin sulpur/sulfur: brimstone, a burning stone); a single unanalysable root with no prefix or suffix

British and American spelling

Sulfur is the American spelling. British English spells it sulphur.