brimstone

Meanings

1. The sulfur of hell; hell, damnation.
2. Sulfur.
3. A whore.
4. Used attributively as an intensifier in exclamations.
5. The butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni of the Pieridae family.
6. Online content of exceptionally poor quality, lower than coal.

Etymology

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.