# sulphur
## English
### Noun

sulphur (countable and uncountable, plural sulphurs)
* Alternative spelling of sulfur

#### Derived terms

* chlorsulphuron
* disulphur
* golden sulphur
* Hot Sulphur Springs
* organosulphur
* Owly sulphur, a type of owlfly
* radiosulphur
* sulphurate
* sulphurflower
* sulphur-free
* sulphurian
* sulphuriferous
* sulphurine
* sulphurise
* sulphurity
* sulphurization
* sulphurless
* sulphurlike
* sulphursome
* sulphur spring
* Sulphur Springs
* sulphurtransferase
* sulphurwort
* sulphury
* sulphuryl
* tetrasulphur
* western sulphur
* White Sulphur Springs

### Verb

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

* ↑ Nature Chemistry 1, 333 (2009). doi:10.1038/nchem.301

### Anagrams

* uphurls

## Latin
### 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. The Latin has also been suggested to stem from a non-Indo-European Wanderwort; see Proto-Germanic *sweblaz (“sulfur”) for more.

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈsul.pʰur/, [ˈs̠ʊɫ̪pʰʊr]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈsul.fur/, [ˈsulfur]

### Noun

sulphur n (genitive sulphuris); third declension
* sulfur, brimstone
* lightning

#### Declension

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

#### Descendants

* Balkan Romance:
** Aromanian: scljifur
* Italo-Romance:
** Italian: zolfo, solfo (dated)
** Sicilian: sùrfuru
* Padanian:
** Emilian: solfar, suifre
** Friulian: solfar
** Lombard: solfor, solfer, sofrec
    Alpine: sofri, solfri, sofric
** Piedmontese: sofro, sorfo, solfo, solfer
** Romansch: zulper
** Venetan: solfer, sólfaro, solfare, solfar
* Northern Gallo-Romance:
** Old Northern French: sulfre
*** Anglo-Norman: sulfre
**** → English: sulfur, sulphur
***** → Malay: sulfur / سولفور
** Franco-Provençal: sopro, sofro
** Old French: soufre, soffre
*** French: soufre
* Southern Gallo-Romance:
** Aragonese: xufre, ixufre
    Ribagorçan: eixufre
** Catalan: sofre
** Occitan: sofre
    Auvergnat: siupre, supre
    Languedocien: solpre, siupre
    Limousin: siufre
    Provençal: soupre, sopre, soufre
    Vivaro-Alpine: sòupre, sopre, siupre
* Ibero-Romance:
** Old Galician-Portuguese: suffre
*** Galician: xofre
*** Portuguese: enxofre
** Old Spanish: sufre
*** → Basque: sufre
*** Spanish: azufre
* Insular Romance:
** Sardinian: súlfaru, súlfuru, súrfuru
* Borrowings:
** → Albanian: squfuri, sulfur
** → Catalan: sulfur
** → English: sulfur, sulphur
*** → Welsh: sylffwr
** → Romanian: sulf

### References

* ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “sulpur, -uris”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 598
* ↑ Guus Kroonen (2013) “*swebla-”, in Alexander Lubotsky, editor, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11)‎, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 497

### Further reading

* “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)
* sulfur

#### Descendants

* English: sulphur, sulfur

### References

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