Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also brimstone-barrel) a prostitute; thus an insulting name for any woman (see cite 1765).

1665		‘R.M.’ Scarronides 75: I know thee old Toft well enough, A stinking piece of Stigian stuff; In vain thy self doest toss and tumble With mens [...] And so the Devil take thee; Let me alone with peace to quarrel, And be reveng’d old brimstone-barrel.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Brim, or Brimstone a very Impudent, Lew’d Woman.
1699		N. Ward London Spy VI 140: What do you think [...] this buttocking brimstone came hither for?
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 137: How now, you two confederate brimstones, where are you swimming with your fine top-knots, to invite some Irish bully or Scotch Highlander to scour your cloven furbelows for a petticoat pension?
1725		N. Ward Amorous Bugbears 25: I [...] had by that means arriv’d to such a pitch of Confidence as might enable me to attack the most accomplished Curtesan, from the Kept-Mistress, to the Drury-Brimstone. [Ibid.] 35: The gaudy Brimstone, with a painted Face.
1737		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. n.p.: Brim or Brimstone, a very impudent, lewd Woman.
1754		G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: The brimstone she wheedled so bienly.
1763		Boswell London Journal 4 June n.p.: I went to the Park and picked up a low brimstone, called myself a barber and agreed for sixpence [...] and dipped my machine in the Canal and performed most manfully.
1765		Caledonian Mercury 14 Oct. 1/2: Zounds! we have not had in all this? The brimstone has set down half a dozen empty bottles!
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 17: Thou eternally art wrangling, / And for some brimstone always jangling.
c.1780		Entire New List of the Sporting Ladies [broadsheet] From the other side of the Tweed are likewise come a numerous String of Brimstones.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: brim (abbreviation of brimstone) an abandoned woman; perhaps originally only a passionate or irascible woman, compared to brimstone for its inflammability.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 46: I wish the brimstone’s pepper’d tail / Was in the belly of that whale.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 179: This ‘lady-bird,’ who has not only disposed of many an unruly character in her time, but buzzed them into the bargain, is taking her drops of jackey with Old mother brimstone, who has also toddled in to have a flash of lightning before she goes to roost.
1841		Worcs. Chron. 18 Aug. 4/1: A mock modest young widow for Eve-sham [...] Two ‘swipey’ young brimstones for Malton.
1914		E. Wittmann ‘Clipped Words’ in DN IV:ii 119: brim, i.e. brimstone. [...] 2. A prostitute.

2. a termagant.

1790		Banquet of Wit 31: Madam, says he, I have heard of tartars and brimstones, but, by G—, you are the cream of the one and the flower of the other.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ A Dict. of the Turf, The Ring, The Chase, etc. 17: Brimstone — female only; one who fires away at the first strike.
1831		‘Gallery of 140 Comicalities’ Bell’s Life in London 24 June 2/4: Toddle, you precious old brimstone! Let me have no more of your slack; and when you return take care you bring a civil tongue in your head!
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 335: Brimstone, Termagant, Witch, Thief, / Fright, She-dragon, wrinkled Tabby.
1859		H. Kingsley Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 188: A young and beautiful woman, villain-beguiled, who seemed, too, to have a temper of her own, and promised, under circumstances, to turn out a bit of a b—mst—ne.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1707		Fifteen Comforts of a Wanton Wife 7: His Pious Wife is still a Brimstone Whore, / Who made him Cuckold, and confounded Poor.
1712		Burnet in Walpole’s Reminiscences (1819) 7: Oh madam, do not you know what a brimstone of a wife he had?
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 393: Steer your course clear of all such brimstone bitches.
1770		D. Gunston (ed.) Jemmy Twitcher’s Jests 70: She has had the misfortune to have a husband that was acquainted with a pack of brimstone bitches.