Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To persist in emitting light, unaccompanied by sensible heat or combustion, after exposure to and removal of a source of radiation.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To shine, as phosphorus, by exhibiting a faint light without sensible heat; give out a phosphorescent light.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To shine as phosphorus; to be phosphorescent; to emit a phosphoric light.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To exhibit
phosphorescence
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb to exhibit phosphorescence
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Some online research revealed that decaying wood can phosphoresce due to the presence of a fungus known as Agaricus melleus.
Where is All Your Knowledge Gone To? scottedelman 2008
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He had inherited from his father a supply of uranium salts, which phosphoresce on exposure to light.
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But on some nights the sea would phosphoresce, he remembered, you dipped your hand into the waves that lapped against your boat and lifted it with fire streaming off ....
Three Worlds To Conquer Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1964
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But on some nights the sea would phosphoresce, he remembered, you dipped your hand into the waves that lapped against your boat and lifted it with fire streaming off ....
Three Worlds to Conquer Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1964
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If the exhaustion is further pushed, then, at the point where the surface of the negative pole ceases to be luminous, the material on the positive pole, B, commences to phosphoresce, increasing in intensity until the tube refuses to conduct, its greatest brilliancy being just short of this degree of exhaustion.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 Various
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They are both readily soluble in acids, with effervescence, and infusible but crumble to powder before the blowpipe, or at least become brittle; when rubbed in mass with a piece of iron, they phosphoresce with a yellow light; specific gravity,
Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 Various
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I took a screen made of zincblende, which will phosphoresce when the emanations of radium fall upon it.
The Life Radiant Lilian Whiting
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If then we prepare densely inseminated plates of these two bacteria in gelatine food-medium to which starch is added as the only carbohydrate, the bacteria grow but do not phosphoresce.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" Various
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Very many bodies, such as ruby, diamond, emerald, alumina, yttria, samaria, and a large class of earthy oxides and sulphides, phosphoresce in vacuum tubes when placed in the path of the stream of electrified molecules proceeding from the negative pole.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 Various
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But from numerous experiments I find that bodies will phosphoresce in actual contact with the negative pole.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 Various
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