Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small, medicated candy intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to lubricate and soothe irritated tissues of the throat.
  • noun A four-sided planar figure with a diamondlike shape; a rhombus that is not a square.
  • noun Something having this shape, especially a heraldic device.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A plane figure with four equal sides, having two acute and two obtuse angles, also called a diamond; a rhomb; also, formerly, any oblique parallelogram.
  • noun Somothing resembling such a figure in form. :
  • noun A small cake of sugar, or confection, often medicated, originally in the form of a rhomb, but now variously shaped.
  • noun A pane of glass for window-glazing, either lozenge-shaped or square, but intended to be set diagonally; a quarrel.
  • noun An envelop-blank cut out by a punching-machine.
  • noun In the cutting of brilliants, one of the four quoins of the upper surface or crown. See quoin.
  • noun A spangle.
  • In decorative art, divided by diagonal lines into diamonds or lozenges: a common distribution of decorative design in the fourteenth century: as, a lozenge pattern.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A diamond-shaped figure usually with the upper and lower angles slightly acute, borne upon a shield or escutcheon. Cf. fusil.
  • noun A form of the escutcheon used by women instead of the shield which is used by men.
  • noun A figure with four equal sides, having two acute and two obtuse angles; a rhomb.
  • noun Anything in the form of lozenge.
  • noun A small cake of sugar and starch, flavored, and often medicated. -- originally in the form of a lozenge.
  • noun [Obs.] the coach of a dowager, having her coat of arms painted on a lozenge.
  • noun (Arch.) a kind of molding, used in Norman architecture, characterized by lozenge-shaped ornaments.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A quadrilateral with sides of equal length (rhombus), having two acute and two obtuse angles.
  • noun A small tablet (originally diamond-shaped) or medicated sweet used to ease a sore throat.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small aromatic or medicated candy
  • noun a dose of medicine in the form of a small pellet

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, rhombus, from Old French losenge, perhaps akin to Provençal lausa, flagstone, roofing slate (from a source akin to Latin lausiae, stone chips, perhaps of Celtic origin ) or from Arabic lawzīnaj, confection made from almonds (from Middle Persian lawzēnak : lawz- ultimately from early Aramaic *lawz-, almond; see lwz in Semitic roots + Middle Persian -ēnak, n. suffix).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French losenge ("rhombus") (French losange), from Old Provençal lausa ("flat stone"), from Gaulish; cognate with Spanish losa ("square tile").

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Examples

  • I liked the Bonaventure signage, too – Helvetica in lozenge shapes, color coded by area.

    2009 October : Scrubbles.net 2009

  • I liked the Bonaventure signage, too – Helvetica in lozenge shapes, color coded by area.

    Sunday: Hollywood! : Scrubbles.net 2009

  • The heiress lozenge is a specific in some consumptions.

    Belinda 1801

  • One side of this square was entirely occupied by an enormous, lofty, and handsome building, the central portion of which was surmounted by an immense dome, covered with plates of gold, arranged in tiers or bands of different shapes among which that of the lozenge was the most conspicuous, while each corner of the building was crowned with

    In Search of El Dorado Harry Collingwood 1886

  • She knocked at the shop door, and when it was opened, asked for a particular kind of lozenge of great effect in dangerous illness.

    The Elson Readers, Book 5 Christine M. Keck

  • There's every chance of a real Bukhara rug with its 'lozenge' design in ruby and cinnabar that gleams when taken out to be beaten.

    Hindustan Times News Feeds 'Views' 2009

  • He also sounds like he is permanently sucking on a lozenge which is a little off-putting.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2009

  • The quilt is worked using two sizes of lozenge diamond, and a rhomboid shape of black-and-white spotted fabric for the light-coloured 'trellis' effect dividing the diamonds.

    Jane Austen: Seamstress and Quilter Linda 2009

  • The quilt is worked using two sizes of lozenge diamond, and a rhomboid shape of black-and-white spotted fabric for the light-coloured 'trellis' effect dividing the diamonds.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Linda 2009

  • Obtaining nicotine from gum, lozenge or patch doesn't replace entirely the pleasure of smoking any more than popping a tablet of caffeine—the addictive element in coffee—could equal the pleasure of a fresh-brewed cup of cappuccino.

    Chew On This: Sticking With Nicotine Gum for the Long Haul David Kesmodel 2011

Comments

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  • This word is a joke in itself to me. I was driving in Pennsylvania with a good friend many years ago and ... well, just see the page for Ronks.

    November 21, 2007

  • My friend from up Minnesota just remarked, "There's no 'R'; I'm so suprised." Hahahahahah.

    November 21, 2007

  • If one more person tells me this rhymes with orange, I will die.

    November 21, 2007

  • Yarb was a wordie most renowned

    Whose views on rhymes were quite sound

    He was offered up "lozenge"

    to rhyme against "orange"

    and promptly dropped, dead, to the ground.

    Yeah. I see what you mean.

    November 21, 2007

  • Har! A rhyme so ugly, you could plotz.

    This was a great laugh Asativum. Thanks!

    November 21, 2007

  • Said friend actually pronounces it "lozenger", but that's still a darling limerick.

    November 21, 2007

  • I was *wondering* why I always think of this word as diamond-shaped. So I went looking. Now I know.

    From Wikipedia.

    "The lozenge in heraldry is a diamond-shaped charge (an object that can be placed on the field of the shield), usually somewhat narrower than it is tall... A field covered in a pattern of lozenges is described as lozengy... The lozenge has for many centuries been particularly associated with women as a vehicle for the display of their coats of arms (instead of the escutcheon or shield). ..."

    November 21, 2007

  • It also describes a type of bookbinding design--same shape. That's what I usually think of--that and the Smith Brothers. ;-)

    November 21, 2007

  • Thanks asativum: I've never been limericked before. I feel loved.

    cb: you and your heraldry!

    November 22, 2007

  • Yeah, I gotta work on that list some more. It's kinda paltry.

    Well, yarb, that's where I got my username, after all. You could've expected I'd be a bit of a geek about it. Or, you know, just expected that I'm a bit of a geek.

    November 22, 2007

  • It was a funny limerick, but perhaps it was my oedilf days which led me to think the whole time that the stresses ended up on the wrong words. With no offense intended, I'll offer up this slight change.

    Mr. Yarb was a Wordie renowned

    and his views on what rhymes were quite sound

    they offered up "lozenge"

    to rhyme against "orange"

    and he promptly dropped dead to the ground.

    November 22, 2007

  • L. is abbreviated in Rx as 'troche' for trochiscus.

    February 18, 2009

  • "8. In decorative art, divided by diagonal lines into diamonds or lozenges: a common distribution of decorative design in the fourteenth century: as, a lozenge pattern. Tapestries of this epoch are often so divided, each lozenge being filled with some heraldic bearing, and the background of miniatures in manuscripts often has the same pattern." --Cent. Dict.

    June 16, 2011

  • My skull aches from where the moon spent the night under its cranium, like a lozenge of slowly melting ice. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.

    March 27, 2012