sulphur: [14] The origins of Latin sulphur are not known, although it may have links with German schwefel ‘sulphur’. It has spread throughout the Romance languages (French soufre, Italian solfo, and, with the addition of Arabic al ‘the’, Spanish azufre), and has been borrowed into Dutch as sulfer and into English (where it eventually replaced the native brimstone [12], etymologically ‘burning stone’) as sulphur. [sulphur etymology, sulphur origin, 英语词源]