The building blocks of English

Affixes

-esce

Also ‑escent, ‑escence, and ‑escency.

Forming verbs, often denoting the initiation of an action.

Verbs in ‑esce are from or suggested by Latin verbs ending in ‑escere; adjectives in ‑escent are from French or Latin ‑escent‑ (the present participial stem of verbs ending in ‑escere); nouns in ‑escence derive from the related French ‑escence or Latin ‑escentia.

Examples of the verb include coalesce, convalesce, effervesce, fluoresce, and phosphoresce. In some cases the sense has shifted away from that of its Latin precursor: acquiesce means to accept something reluctantly but without protest, but its Latin original implies an active change of state, ‘to put at rest’ (ad‑, to or at, plus quiescere, to rest).

The ending ‑escent forms adjectives related to the verbs: deliquescent, effervescent, incandescent, phosphorescent. In some cases adjectives derive instead from verbs ending in ‑fy; frutescent (fructify); putrescent (putrefy); tumescent (tumefy). A few adjectives, such as adolescent, can also be nouns. The ending ‑escence forms nouns that correspond to the adjectives or verbs or both: adolescence, convalescence, excrescence, fluorescence, luminescence, obsolescence, putrescence, senescence.

A few nouns in ‑escency exist: effervescency, quiescency, but they are much less common than the equivalents in ‑ence.