LUMINESCENCE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does luminescence mean? 

• LUMINESCENCE (noun)
  The noun LUMINESCENCE has 2 senses:

1. light not due to incandescence; occurs at low temperatures

2. light from nonthermal sources

  Familiarity information: LUMINESCENCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LUMINESCENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Light not due to incandescence; occurs at low temperatures

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("luminescence" is a kind of...):

light; visible light; visible radiation ((physics) electromagnetic radiation that can produce a visual sensation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "luminescence"):

bioluminescence (luminescence produced by physiological processes (as in the firefly))

chemiluminescence (luminescence resulting from a chemical reaction as the oxidation of luciferin in fireflies)

Derivation:

luminesce (be or become luminescent; exhibit luminescence)

luminescent (emitting light not caused by heat)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Light from nonthermal sources

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

glow; luminescence

Hypernyms ("luminescence" is a kind of...):

brightness; brightness level; light; luminance; luminosity; luminousness (the quality of being luminous; emitting or reflecting light)

Derivation:

luminesce (be or become luminescent; exhibit luminescence)

luminescent (emitting light not caused by heat)

 Context examples 

Arbitrary unit(s) of fluorescent luminescence.

(Arbitrary Fluorescence Units, NCI Thesaurus)

A measurement of the amount of luminescence emitted from a given sample due to the absorption of a photon by that sample.

(Fluorescence Units, NCI Thesaurus)

Fluorescence is a luminescence (i.e., optical phenomenon) in cold bodies, in which a molecule absorbs a high-energy photon, and re-emits it as a lower-energy (longer-wavelength) photon.

(Fluorescence, NCI Thesaurus)