“Sulfur” or “Sulphur”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 3 prefer “sulfur” and 9 prefer “sulphur”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	sulfur	sulphur	Preference
United States	49	51	“sulphur”
United Kingdom	40	60	“sulphur”
India	12	88	“sulphur”
Philippines	94	6	“sulfur”
Canada	56	44	“sulfur”
Australia	47	53	“sulphur”
Liberia	70	30	“sulfur”
Ireland	43	57	“sulphur”
New Zealand	40	60	“sulphur”
Jamaica	43	57	“sulphur”
Trinidad & Tobago	38	62	“sulphur”
Guyana	47	53	“sulphur”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“sulfur”

Sulfur is released from areas all…
…but does not reduce elemental sulfur, malate, and fumarate.
…petroleum refining industry, whereby liquid sulfur dioxide is used to extract…
…to emit one ton of sulfur dioxide.
…mi/26 km2) is a former sulfur mining area in northern Death…
…Taiwan's major export items was sulfur collected from near Keelung and
Other purple sulfur bacteria have acyclic carotenoid pigments…
M57 FS (a solution of Sulfur trioxide in Chlorosulfonic acid) Chemical…
…2 of nitre, 1 of sulfur, and 1 of colophony; or…
…(containing calcium carbonate), and a sulfur source such as gypsum (calcium…

“sulphur”

…or female, and mercury and sulphur especially were thought to have…
…to ensure compliance with the sulphur regulation of MARPOL Annex VI.
…as well as herbicides using sulphuric acid, arsenites and salt and…
…later shortened this name to "Sulphur Dell", and the name stuck…
…area was the presence of sulphur wells, at Chillington and Gunstone.
Phoebis philea – orange-barred sulphur
…Dos Cabezas Spring; across the Sulphur Springs Valley and Willcox Playa…
Sulphur Creek
…plants used by the dainty sulphur:
…and the oxidation of elemental sulphur, which in turn provides sulphate…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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