lozenge

English
WOTD – 11 February 2011
lozenges (1)
throat lozenges (2)

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English losenge, from Old French losenge (“rhombus”), from Old French *lose (“flag-stone”), from Vulgar Latin *lausa.

Pronunciation
  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈlɒz.ɪnd͡ʒ/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈlɑ.zɪnd͡ʒ/
  • (General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈlɔz.ɪnd͡ʒ/
    • Audio (AU)(file)

Noun

lozenge (plural lozenges)

  1. (shapes, heraldry) A quadrilateral with sides of equal length (rhombus), having two acute and two obtuse angles.
    Synonyms: (informal) diamond, rhomb, (most common in mathematics) rhombus
    • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society, published 2007, page 167:
      Wherein the decussis is made within a longilaterall square, with opposite angles, acute and obtuse at the intersection; and so upon progression making a Rhombus or Lozenge figuration [...].
    • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 9, in Vani8ty Fair:
      How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman!
    • 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 14:
      The floor is constructed from marble lozenges and triangles of every imaginable hue: yellow and pink and all manner of mottled and blotched shades, framed in white.
  2. A small tablet (originally diamond-shaped) or medicated sweet used to ease a sore throat.
    Synonyms: pastille, throat pastille, troche, lozzy
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

lozenge (third-person singular simple present lozenges, present participle lozenging, simple past and past participle lozenged)

  1. (transitive) To form into the shape of a lozenge.
  2. (transitive) To mark or emblazon with a lozenge.

Further reading

Middle English

Noun

lozenge

  1. Alternative form of losenge
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