the.com/phosphorylation

means A chemical process in which a phosphate group is bonded onto a molecule—usually a protein or sugar—changing its shape, charge, or activity, most often used by cells as an on/off switch for enzymes.

from Built from 'phosphorus,' which the chemist Hennig Brand named in the 1600s from Greek 'phosphoros'—'light-bearer,' from 'phos' (light) and 'phoros' (bearer)—because the element he isolated glowed eerily in the dark. The '-ation' suffix, from Latin, turns it into 'the act of.' So phosphorylation is literally 'the act of adding the light-bearing element's compound'—a name chemistry borrowed long after phosphorus's glow had already made it famous.