-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.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
-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
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
-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]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.