lucifer match
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.42 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
4
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A sulfur friction match whose head is treated with equal parts antimony trisulfide and potassium chlorate.
British usage; Obsolete
noun
Synonym of phosphorus match, a strike-anywhere friction match coated with white phosphorus.
British usage; Archaic
Example Sentences
- "The proposal to get up a memorial to the late John Walker, of Stockton, who is held to be the first inventor of the lucifer match, has revived the question of Sir Isaac Holden's claim to that honor."
- "The invention of the Lucifer Match has brought with it many dangers. In one year, in London, there were published thirty-nine accounts of serious conflagrations through children playing with lucifers, the igniting of the matches, and the careless use of them... To guard against the recurrance of these sad results has been invented "the Safety Match," or a match which cannot ignite by friction with ordinary substances..."
- "Fortunately for the dissemination of Lucifer Matches, they were neither taken up as a Government monopoly nor fostered by protection... We have not only our safety lights and patent vestas, but a host of foreign varieties, Standsticknors, Zundholz, Allumettes Chimiques, often in boxes gems of artistic skill, and from such distances as to prove how little the cost of transport is appreciable on small objects."
Etymology
From Latin lucifer (“bringer of light”), originally a brand name for Isaac Holden's match formulation as marketed by Samuel Jones from 1829 or 1830 but soon transferred to the era's friction matches generally.
Origin
- Source language: Latin