Desulphur

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To take the sulphur out of a fuel, ore or other material, often to reduce pollution or improve its quality
2. Stripping sulphur compounds from crude oil, coal or metal so that the material becomes cleaner and less corrosive
3. Extracting the sulphur content from a substance by chemical or physical processing to make it purer

Etymology: The verb "desulphur" is about as plain as English word-building gets: the prefix "de-", meaning "remove or reverse", attached to "sulphur", the yellow element that burns with a choking smell. To desulphur something is to strip sulphur out of it, and the process is most familiar in refining fuel and steel, where sulphur impurities must be taken out before the material is usable. The prefix itself is older than English. It comes from Latin "de", meaning "from" or "down", which passed into English as a productive element for forming verbs of removal. The base is a Latin word, "sulpur" or "sulfur", which was borrowed through Anglo-Norman and Middle English before settling into the modern spelling. The word is an English formation, built from those two pieces, and its meaning follows directly from its parts.

Synonyms: desulfurize, desulfur

Antonyms: sulphurize, sulfurize