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fluoresce

American  
[floo-res, flaw-, floh-] / flʊˈrɛs, flɔ-, floʊ- /

verb (used without object)

fluoresced, fluorescing
  1. to exhibit fluorescence.


fluoresce British  
/ ˌflʊəˈrɛs /

verb

  1. (intr) to exhibit fluorescence

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of fluoresce

First recorded in 1870–75; back formation from fluorescence

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

A final burst of laser pulses nudges each ion to either fluoresce or not—a flash of binary code that detectors read out as the computation’s solution.

From Science Magazine May 30, 2024

The 34-year-old is on a one-man mission to shine his UV light on what he calls a "magic world" in which plants and animals fluoresce to communicate.

From BBC Feb. 17, 2024

This describes how long, on average, it takes for a dye molecule to fluoresce after it is excited.

From Science Daily Feb. 14, 2024

According to a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science this month, lions, polar bears, scaly-tailed possums and American pikas also fluoresce.

From New York Times Oct. 20, 2023

Several types of so-called debloomed oil have been placed upon the market, and although such oils appear under ordinary light conditions to be free from bloom, they fluoresce quite strongly when given the Outerbridge test.

From Paint Technology and Tests by Gardner, Henry A.

The team combined five coumarin-based molecular probes, each of which fluoresced to a different degree when it encountered the amyloids, into a sensor array.

From Science Daily Feb. 5, 2024

Low-energy light gave the motor just enough power to rotate, whereas higher-energy light overexcited it, leading it to dispose of excess energy by emitting photons: it fluoresced.

From Scientific American Dec. 30, 2022

When she returned before dawn, equipped with an ultraviolet flashlight under which the powder fluoresced, small constellations of footprints surrounded each tray and trailed off into the darkness.

From New York Times Nov. 25, 2022

They fluoresced into glowing ingots: red, blue, yellow, violet.

From The New Yorker Dec. 15, 2014

The stream of high-speed electrons impinging upon the energy beam fluoresced into ultra-spicules of intense light.

From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov

This approach, known as "spatial multiplexing," allows researchers to distinguish signals for different molecules even though they may all be fluorescing the same color.

From Science Daily Nov. 28, 2023

The group differentiated the hESCs into neuronal precursors, then sorted the fluorescing cells from the rest of the population.

From Nature May 25, 2020

With it, Olson noticed an unexpected red fluorescing signal so small that they first thought it was electronic noise.

From Science Magazine Mar. 9, 2017

One showed me what the TB bacteria look like through his microscope: tiny, bright fluorescing stripes.

From The Guardian Feb. 23, 2016

He felt aglow, like his blood was fluorescing.

From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner

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