-escent

-escent

suff.1. Beginning to be; becoming: juvenescent.2. Characterized by; resembling: opalescent.
[French, from Old French, from Latin -ēscēns, -ēscent-, present participle suff. of inchoative verbs in -ēscere.]

-escent

suffix forming adjectives beginning to be, do, show, etc: convalescent; luminescent. [via Old French from Latin -ēscent-, stem of present participial suffix of -ēscere, ending of inceptive verbs] -escence suffix forming nouns

-escent

a suffix of adjectives borrowed from Latin, where it had an inchoative force (convalescent; recrudescent); also used with the sense “giving off light" of the kind or in the manner specified ( fluorescent; iridescent). [< Latin, s. of -ēscēns, present participle ending (see -esce, -ent); in sense “giving off light,” probably extracted from incandescent]