lozenge

lozenge

English

WOTD – 11 February 2011

lozenges (1)

throat lozenges (2)

Alternative forms

• losenge (obsolete)

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): /ˈlɑz.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 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 [...].

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vani8ty Fair, Chapter 9:

     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 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 sore throat.

   Synonyms: pastille, throat pastille, troche

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:

     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

• lozenge coach

Translations

rhombus

Bulgarian: ромб m (romb) Catalan: losange m, rombe (ca) m Chinese: Mandarin: 菱形 (zh) (língxíng) Dutch: ruit (nl) Finnish: neljäkäs (fi), vinoneliö (fi), salmiakki (fi), salmiakkiruutu (fi) French: losange (fr) m, rhombus (fr) m German: Raute (de) f Greek: ρόμβος (el) m (rómvos) Hungarian: rombusz (hu) Irish: muileata m Italian: losanga (it) f, rombo (it) Japanese: 菱 (ja) (hishi) Korean: 마름모 (ko) (mareummo) Middle English: losenge Persian: لوزی‎ (fa) (lovzi) Polish: romb (pl) m Portuguese: losango (pt) m, rombo (pt) m Russian: ромб (ru) m (romb) Spanish: losange (es), rombo (es) Swedish: ruta (sv) c, snedruta c Turkish: eşkenar dörtgen (tr)

medicated sweet

Catalan: pastilla (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 含片 (zh) (hánpiàn) Dutch: keelpastille f, pastille (nl) f Finnish: kurkkupastilli French: pastille (fr) f German: Pastille (de) f Greek: Ancient: ἔκλειγμα n (ékleigma) Hungarian: pasztilla (hu) Irish: losainn f Italian: pastiglia (it) Japanese: 錠剤 (ja) (じょうざい, jōzai), ロズンジ (rozunji), トローチ (torōchi) (troche), のど飴 (nodo ame) Latin: pastillus m Norwegian: Bokmål: pastill m Nynorsk: pastill m Persian: مکیدنی‎ (fa) (makidani) Plautdietsch: Pell f Portuguese: pastilha (pt) f Russian: пасти́лка (ru) f (pastílka), (лека́рственный) ледене́ц (ru) m (ledenéc), (соса́тельная) табле́тка (ru) f (tablétka) Spanish: pastilla (es) Turkish: pastil (tr)

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

• lozenge on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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Middle English

Noun

lozenge

1. Alternative form of losenge