orpiment
/ˈɔɹpəmənt/noun
orpiment is a noun meaning “Arsenic trisulphide, occurring naturally in crystals or massive deposits, formerly used as a dye or pigment” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled O-R-P-I-M-E-N-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 58 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of orpiment is orpiments.
What does orpiment mean?
noun
- 1
Arsenic trisulphide, occurring naturally in crystals or massive deposits, formerly used as a dye or pigment.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce orpiment?
- UK /ˈɔːpɪmənt/
- US /ˈɔɹpəmənt/
Orpiment has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of orpiment
- orpiments plural
- auripigment
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is orpiment?
Orpiment appears about once in every 58 million words in written English, the 237,177th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Orpiment in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense arsenic trisulphide:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | orpiment |
| German | Auripigment, Opperment, gelbes Schwefelarsenik, gelbe Arsenblende, Rauschgelb |
| Portuguese | auripigmento, ouro-pimenta, ouro-pigmento |
| Spanish | oropimente |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does orpiment come from?
From Middle English orpyment, from Old French orpiment, from Latin auripigmentum (“orpiment”), from aurum (“gold”) + pigmentum (“pigment”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).