Definition of "brimstone"

For griefe thereof, and diuelish despight, / From his infernall fournace forth he threw / Huge flames, that dimmed all the heauens light, / Enrold in duskish smoke and brimstone blew.

1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

Till, as a signal giv'n, th' uplifted Spear / Of their great Sultan waving to direct / Thir course, in even ballance down they light / On the firm brimstone, and fill all the Plain; / A multitude.

1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost

[W]hen he [the Devil] is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss [...]

1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times

But the sulphurous brimstone which burns in hell is a substance which is specially designed to burn for ever and for ever with unspeakable fury.

1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Weel I wot I wad be broken if I were to gie sic weight to the folk that come to buy our pepper and brimstone, and suchlike sweetmeats.

1816, Walter Scott, The Antiquary

Don't think, young man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone and molasses, just to purify them.

1838, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

I went to the park, picked up a low Brimstone, called myself a Barber, & agreed with her for Sixpence, went to the bottom of the park, arm in arm, & dipped my machine in the Canal […].

1763, James Boswell, edited by Gordon Turnbull, London Journal 1762-1763, Penguin, published 2014, page 237

You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!

1852, Charles Dickens, Bleak House

You're a brimstone idiot.

1852, Charles Dickens, Bleak House

I made a speaking trumpet of my hands and commenced to whoop “Ahoy!” and “Hello!” at the top of my lungs. […] The Colonel woke up, and, after asking what in brimstone was the matter, opened his mouth and roared “Hi!” and “Hello!” like the bull of Bashan.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients