Lucifer means "light bearer".
Lucifer was the Latin name for the planet Venus when it appears as the morning star.
The 1968
Cassell's New Latin Dictionary indicated that the Latin word "lucifer" comes from two root words meaning "light-bearing, light-bringing" and that it would be translated into English as "Lucifer, the morning star, the planet Venus." According to the English-Latin section of this dictionary, the translation of "morning-star" in English is given as "lucifer" in Latin.
The
Oxford Latin Dictionary gave two definitions for
lucifer: “light-bringing, light-bearing” and “the morning star” (p. 1045).
The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories affirmed that
Lucifer is “a Latin word originally, meaning ’light-bringing, morning star” (p. 309). At its entry for
day-star, John White listed “lucifer” as its meaning in Latin (
Latin-English Dictionary, p. 100). For Lucifer, this definition is given: “the morning-star, the planet Venus” (p. 355).
The 1828 Webster's Dictionary defined
daystar as following: "The morning star, Lucifer, Venus; the star which precedes the morning light." In her 1997-1998 catalogue, Gail Riplinger claimed that the 1828 Webster's Dictionary "defines words as they were used during the writing of the KJV 1611."
The 1992
Roget's International Thesaurus listed as synonyms: "morning star, day star, Lucifer, Phosphor, Phosphorus" (p. 757).
Rodale’s
Synonym Finder listed the following as synonyms for morning star: “daystar, bright planet; Venus, Lucifer, Phosphor, Phosphorus” (p. 750).
The preponderance of evidence shows that the renderings "Lucifer," "daystar," and "morning star" were used as synonyms.
