Lozenge

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈlÉ’zɪndÊ’/
• US IPA: /ˈlÉ‘zÉ™ndÊ’/

Origin

From Old French losenge ("rhombus") (compare French losange), from *lose ("flag-stone"), from Late Latin lausiae ("pebbles in a stone-quarry"), from Gaulish *lawsyā, from Proto-Celtic *laws ("stone"), from Proto-Indo-European *leh₁us ("stone"). Cognate with Spanish losa ("square tile").

Full definition of lozenge

Noun

1. (shapes) (heraldiccharge) A quadrilateral with sides of equal length (rhombus), having two acute and two obtuse angles.
• 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society 2007, p. 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 ....
• 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society 2011, p. 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 .
• 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 3, 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.

Synonyms

• (quadrilateral) diamond informal, rhomb, rhombus most common in mathematics
• (medicated sweet) pastille, throat pastille, troche

Verb

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