What does "luciferase" mean?

Any one of a group of enzymes that produce bioluminescence by oxidizing luciferin.

What is a synonym for "luciferase"?

Common synonyms include: fata morgana, firefly, fluorescence, fox fire, glowworm, ignis fatuus.

Luciferase

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Any one of a group of enzymes that produce bioluminescence by oxidizing luciferin.
"Aptly enough, glowworms light up their underworld with a pair of chemicals that have a satanic etymology—luciferins and luciferases, after the Latin for “light bringer.”"

Synonyms

All synonyms

fata morgana firefly fluorescence fox fire glowworm ignis fatuus

Example

More examples

"Aptly enough, glowworms light up their underworld with a pair of chemicals that have a satanic etymology—luciferins and luciferases, after the Latin for “light bringer.”"

Etymology

From luciferin + -ase.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.