Lucifer

What is a Lucifer?

“Lucifer”  is a slang name for a match, made usually of a splint of wood tipped with an inflammable substance which ignites when the match is struck on a prepared surface.

The word comes from Latin and means “light-bringing”. It has been used in poetry as a name for the morning star, the planet Venus, when it spears in the sky before sunrise.

It is also found in the Bible, where the fall of the King of Babylon is described in these words: “How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.”

Early members of the Christian Church interpreted the words of Jesus – “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” – as a reference to this passage in Isaiah. So Lucifer came to be regarded as the name of Satan before his fall.

John Milton (1608-1674), in his poem Paradise Lost, gave the angel whose overweening pride made him seek to dethrone God Himself – a sin perpetuated in the phrase “As proud as Lucifer”.