What does bromine mean?
Bromine is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35, belonging to the halogen family alongside fluorine, chlorine, and iodine. Unusually among elements, it exists as a liquid at room temperature: a heavy, mobile, reddish-brown fluid that evaporates readily into an acrid, suffocating vapor — a property reflected in its name, drawn from the Greek word for stench. Discovered independently in 1825–1826 by chemists in Germany and France, bromine is highly reactive and never occurs free in nature, instead appearing in salts such as those found in seawater and brine wells. Its principal modern uses include flame retardants, water-treatment chemicals, drilling fluids, and dyes; historically its silver salts were central to photographic film. Because it is toxic and corrosive, bromine is handled mainly in industrial and laboratory settings, and the word belongs firmly to scientific rather than everyday vocabulary.
nounA deep red, fuming, highly reactive liquid halogen element (symbol Br, atomic number 35) used chiefly in flame retardants, dyes, and photography.
- The chemical element bromine (Br, atomic number 35): a volatile, reddish-brown liquid halogen used in industry.
- (Informal, historical) Bromine water or bromine compounds as reagents, especially in laboratory testing for unsaturation.
"The chemist handled the bromine in a fume hood, wary of its corrosive fumes."
"Bromine vapors are dense, reddish-brown, and highly irritating to the respiratory tract."
"Adding a drop of bromine water to an alkene decolorizes it rapidly, signaling a double bond."
Rarely pluralized; 'bromines' may refer informally to multiple samples, isotopes, or compounds of bromine, but standard usage treats bromine as an uncountable mass noun.
"Trace amounts of various bromines were detected in the seawater samples."
Bromine is one of only two elements that are liquid at room temperature — and it was named after the Greek word for 'stench' because of its choking smell.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bromine
The word bromine derives from the French brome, coined around the time of the element's discovery in the mid-1820s by the French chemist Antoine-Jérôme Balard, who named it after the Greek brōmos, meaning 'stench,' in reference to its pungent odor. The German chemist Justus von Liebig had independently encountered the substance slightly earlier. Related forms include bromide and bromate, which denote chemical species derived from the element.
Related word forms
How bromine is actually used
Strictly a technical/scientific noun; it does not appear in figurative or everyday idiomatic use. It is an uncountable mass noun when referring to the substance generally, though 'bromines' occasionally appears informally to mean samples or compounds of bromine. The British pronunciation /ˈbrəʊmiːn/ differs slightly from the US /ˈbroʊmiːn/.
Easily confused with bromine
Bromine is the elemental nonmetal itself, while a bromide is a compound containing a bromine atom bonded to another element.