sulphur

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various butterflies of the genus Colias and related genera of the family Pieridae, having yellow or orange wings marked with black.
2. n. Variant of sulfur.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Chemical symbol, S; atomic weight, 31.98. An elementary substance which occurs in nature as a brittle crystalline solid, with resinous luster, almost tasteless, and emitting when rubbed or warmed a peculiar characteristic odor. It is a non-conductor of electricity. Its specific gravity is 2.05. It is insoluble in water, nearly so in alcohol and in ether, but quite soluble in carbon disulphid, petroleum, benzin, etc. It burns in the air with a blue flame, and is oxidized to sulphur dioxid or sulphurous acid. It melts at 238° F., and boils at 824° F., giving off a dense red vapor. Sulphur exists in two distinct crystalline forms, and also as an amorphous variety; these modifications are characterized by differences in specific gravity, in solubility in various liquids, and in many other respects. Between its melting-point and 280° F. it is most fluid, and when cast in wooden molds it forms the stick-sulphur or brimstone of commerce. Between 430° and 480° it becomes much less liquid, and can with difficulty be poured. If poured into water, it forms a ductile mass called plastic sulphur, which may be used for taking impressions of coins, etc. On standing it becomes hard and brittle. From 480° to its boiling-point it is liquid again. Sulphur occurs in great abundance and purity in the neighborhood of active and extinct volcanoes. As an article of commerce, most of it is brought from Sicily. It is also widely distributed in combination with other elements, chiefly in the form of sulphates and sulphids. and it is now extensively obtained from the native sulphids of iron and copper for use in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. It also occurs sparingly in animal and vegetable tissues. Sulphur combines with oxygen, hydrogen, chlorin, etc., to form important compounds, of great use in the arts. It is used in the pure state extensively in the manufacture of gunpowder and matches, and for vulcanizing rubber. Refined sulphur, prepared by sublimation from the crude substance, is used in medicine as a laxative, diaphoretic, and resolvent; it is also largely employed in skin-diseases, both internally and externally. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century casts or copies of antique gems were frequently made by pouring into a mold melted sulphur colored with metallic oxids.
2. n. The supposed substance of lightning.
3. n. In zoology, one of many different pieridine butterflies: a yellow pierian. These butterflies are of some shade of yellow, blanching to nearly white, or deepening to orange, and more or less marked with black. They represent several genera. Colias philodice of the United States is the clouded sulphur; Callidryas eubule is the cloudless sulphur. The former is one of the commonest of North American butterflies, often seen in flocks along roads, settling about mud-puddles and other moist spots. Its larva feeds upon clover. See cuts under Colias, Pieris, and cabbage-butterfly.
4. Of the color of brimstone, or stick-sulphur; of a very greenish, excessively luminous, and highly chromatic yellow: used in zoölogy in many obvious compounds: as, sulphur-bellied; sulphur-crested. A color-disk of two thirds bright chrome-yellow and one third emerald-green gives a somewhat dull sulphur-yellow.
5. To apply sulphur to; also, to fume with sulphur;, sulphurate.

Wiktionary

1. n. alternative spelling of sulfur.
2. v. alternative spelling of sulfur.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Chem.) A nonmetallic element occurring naturally in large quantities, either combined as in the sulphides (as pyrites) and sulphates (as gypsum), or native in volcanic regions, in vast beds mixed with gypsum and various earthy materials, from which it is melted out. Symbol S. Atomic weight 32. The specific gravity of ordinary octohedral sulphur is 2.05; of prismatic sulphur, 1.96.
2. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of yellow or orange butterflies of the subfamily Pierinæ.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. treat with sulphur in order to preserve
2. n. an abundant tasteless odorless multivalent nonmetallic element; best known in yellow crystals; occurs in many sulphide and sulphate minerals and even in native form (especially in volcanic regions)