How do you use the word "sulfur" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "sulfur": Sulfur is used to make matches. Sulfur burns with a blue flame.

Sulfur Meaning

/ˈsʌl.fə/

Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounA 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.

nounA 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., The element symbolically associated with hellfire or damnation, or in alchemy, the fiery principle present in all things.

Sentence Examples

Sulfur is used to make matches.

Sulfur burns with a blue flame.

Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, sulfur and selenium are nonmetals.

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms:

sulphur

Antonyms:

None

CEFR Practice Quiz

The chemist carefully handled a sample of bright yellow ____ in the laboratory.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

The yellow crystals of ____ were found near the opening of the volcano after the recent and mild eruption.

Word Origin & History

Etymology tree Latin sulpur Latin sulfur Latin sulphur Anglo-Norman sulfrebor. Middle English sulphur English sulfur From Middle English sulphur, borrowed from Anglo-Norman sulfre, from Latin sulfur, from sulpur itself of uncertain origin. Displaced Old English swefl and largely displaced brimstone.

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"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:" — 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC:

"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!" — 1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 1, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book I (Death of Louis XV):

"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." — 1907, Herbert M. Vaughan, The Naples Riviera:

"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." — 2003, Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Tor Books:

"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." — 2015 February 25, Kevin McElvaney, “Inside Indonesia's Ijen Volcano”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 06 Mar 2016:

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