Photoluminesced

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The occurrence where a material emits light after gaining energy from absorbed photons; it describes a conversion of absorbed light energy into visible radiation; this involves a substance glowing as a direct result of photon absorption
2. Produces visible light by releasing energy absorbed from incoming photons
3. Gives off light following excitation due to the absorption of light particles

Etymology: "Photoluminesced" is the past tense and past participle of "photoluminesce," which means to emit light after absorbing light. The verb is built from two parts: "photo-," from Greek "phōs" (genitive "phōtos"), meaning light, and "luminesce," a back-formation from "luminescence." Luminescence itself comes from Latin "lumen," light, plus a suffix that marks a process or state. The combination is a modern technical coinage. Its base, "luminesce," follows the pattern of many scientific verbs built from classical roots, added to English as physicists and chemists needed precise terms to distinguish light produced by absorbed energy from light produced by heat. Nothing about the word traces back to ancient Greek or Roman usage; the classical pieces were assembled in recent centuries to name a phenomenon the ancients could not have described in these terms. The "photo-" prefix is the more instructive part. In English it has long meant light, as in "photograph," so "photoluminesce" reads plainly as "to shine with light," which describes exactly what the process is: light in, light out, with the emitted light usually at a different wavelength.