The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lucifer \Lu"ci*fer\, n. [L., bringing light, n., the morning star, fr. lux, lucis, light + ferre to bring.]
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The planet Venus, when appearing as the morning star; -- applied in Isaiah by a metaphor to a king of Babylon.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!
--Is. xiv. 1 -
Tertullian and Gregory the Great understood this passage of Isaiah in reference to the fall of Satan; in consequence of which the name Lucifer has since been applied to Satan.
--Kitto.2. Hence, Satan.
How wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors! . . . When he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again.
--Shak. A match[1] made of a sliver of wood tipped with a combustible substance, and ignited by friction; -- called also lucifer match, and locofoco, now most commonly referred to as a friction match. See Locofoco.
(Zo["o]l.) A genus of free-swimming macruran Crustacea, having a slender body and long appendages.
Usage examples of "lucifer match".
A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred tons burden, conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the truth, was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible article of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of Frank-fort and Epinal.
As that was the pre-lucifer match period, the possession of a steel and tinder box was quite a patent of nobility among boys.