''phosphorescent'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''phosphorescent'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260609164652-00-⌔

phosphorescent - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

phosphorescent (comparative more phosphorescent, superlative most phosphorescent)

• Having the property of emitting light for a period of time after the source of excitation is taken away, e.g., in electrostatic storage tubes and cathode-ray tubes.
  • ✤ Synonym: (especially of the sea, archaic or obsolete) briny
  • ✤ So he imports this special breed of scorpions and feeds them on metal meal and the scorpions turned a phosphorescent blue color and sort of hummed.¹

Noun

phosphorescent (plural phosphorescents)

• A phosphorescent substance.

Etymology

From phosphorus +‎ -escent.
It’s interesting to note that phosphorus is not phosphorescent. Some phosphoric mixtures can be luminescent through chemical reactions, but none exhibit literal phosphorescence.²

Pronunciation

• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɛsənt

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1966 [1961], William S. Burroughs, The Soft Machine (The Nova Trilogy), New York: Grove Press, page 11: ↩

2. John Emsley, The Shocking History of Phosphorus, →ISBN. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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