Lozenge

The lozenge motif dates as far back as the Neolithic and Paleolithic period in Eastern Europe and represents a sown field and female fertility. The ancient lozenge pattern often shows up in Diamond vault architecture, in traditional dress patterns of Slavic peoples, and in traditional Ukrainian embroidery. The lozenge pattern also appears extensively in Celtic art, art from the Ottoman Empire, and ancient Phrygian art.

The lozenge symbolism is one of the main female symbols in Berber carpets. Common Berber jewelry from the Aurès Mountains or Kabylie in Algeria also uses this pattern as a female fertility sign.

In 1658, the English philosopher Sir Thomas Browne published The Garden of Cyrus subtitled The Quincunciall Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients where he outlined the mystical interconnection of art, nature and the Universe. He suggested that ancient plantations used the quincunx pattern that revealed the "mystical mathematics of the city of Heaven" and proof of the wisdom of God.

Lozenges appear as symbols in ancient classic element systems, in amulets, and in religious symbolism. In a suit of playing cards, diamonds is in the shape of a lozenge.

In Unicode, the lozenge is encoded in multiple variants:

U+2311 ⌑ square lozenge (HTML: ⌑)

U+25CA ◊ lozenge (HTML: ◊ ◊)

U+2662 ♢ white diamond suit (HTML: ♢)

U+2666 ♦ black diamond suit (HTML: ♦ ♦)

U+27E0 ⟠ lozenge divided by horizontal rule (HTML: ⟠)

U+29EB ⧫ black lozenge (HTML: ⧫)

U+2B27 ⬧ white medium lozenge (HTML: ⬧)

U+2B28 ⬨ black medium lozenge (HTML: ⬨)

U+2B2A ⬪ white small lozenge (HTML: ⬪)

U+2B2B ⬫ black small lozenge (HTML: ⬫)

In IBM 026 punched card code it is ⌑ (12-8-4), DOS code page 437 (at character code 4) and Mac-Roman.

The LaTeX command for the lozenge is \lozenge.