lozenge

[loz-inj]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR lozenge ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a small, flavored tablet made from sugar or syrup, often medicated, originally diamond-shaped.

Geometry Now Rare. diamond(def 8).

Heraldry.

a diamond-shaped charge.
a diamond-shaped shield bearing the arms of a woman.

RELATED WORDS

capsule, pill, tablet, pastille, troche

Origin of lozenge

1300–50; Middle English losenge < Middle French, Old French, perhaps < Gaulish *lausa flat stone + -enge < Germanic -inga -ing³

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for lozenge

Historical Examples of lozenge

The mascle is afterwards explained to be the lozenge pierced.
Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853
Various
Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
A Widow bears on a lozenge the arms borne by her husband and herself.
The Handbook to English Heraldry
Charles Boutell
In an instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge.
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
This lozenge has since been taken up and replaced by another.
The Memoirs of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo

British Dictionary definitions for lozenge

lozenge

noun

Also called: pastille, troche med a medicated tablet held in the mouth until it has dissolved

geometry another name for rhombus

heraldry a diamond-shaped charge

Word Origin for lozenge

C14: from Old French losange, of Gaulish origin; compare Vulgar Latin lausa flat stone

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for lozenge

figure having four equal sides and two acute and two obtuse angles, early 14c., from Old French losenge "windowpane, small square cake," etc., used for many flat quadrilateral things (Modern French losange). It has cognates in Spanish losanje, Catalan llosange, Italian lozanga. Probably from a pre-Roman Celtic language, perhaps Iberian *lausa or Gaulish *lausa "flat stone" (cf. Provençal lausa, Spanish losa, Catalan llosa, Portuguese lousa "slab, tombstone"), from a pre-Celtic language.

Originally in English a term in heraldry; meaning "small cake or tablet (originally diamond-shaped) of medicine and sugar, etc., meant to be held in the mouth and dissolved" is from 1520s.

Medicine definitions for lozenge

lozenge

[lŏz′ĭnj]

n.

A small, medicated candy intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to lubricate and soothe irritated tissues of the throat.