Word Confusion: Sconce versus Scone

Plural for the noun: sconces
Gerund: sconcing

Third person present verb: sconces
Past tense or past participle: sconced
Present participle: sconcing

Plural: scones

• A flaming torch or candle secured in a holder
• The hole or socket of a candlestick, for holding the candle
• A flat candlestick with a handle

A type of light fixture that is fixed to a wall with the light usually, but not always, directed upwards and outwards, rather than down

A protection for a light

• A lantern or cased support for a candle
• A fixed hanging or projecting candlestick

[Archaic] A small fort or earthwork defending a ford, pass, or castle gate ²

• A shelter or screen serving as protection from fire or the weather

[Archaic] A piece of armor for the head

• Headpiece
• Helmet

A fine so imposed ³

The act of sconcing

A mug or tankard used in sconcing

[Archaic] The head or skull ⁴

[Archaic] Sense, brain, or wit

[Architecture] A squinch

A fragment of a floe of ice

A fixed seat or shelf

Verb, transitive:
[Fortification] To protect with a sconce ²

[Obsolete] To protect

• Shelter

[Obsolete] To shut within a sconce

• To imprison

[Obsolete] To provide with a sconce

[At English universities, especially formerly] To fine (an undergraduate) for a breach of rules or etiquette ³

• Mulct

To challenge (a fellow student) on the grounds of a social misdemeanor to drink a large quantity of beer without stopping

[Australian slang] Head

The sconces burning in the passage provided some light.

I much prefer sconces in the bathroom as they light the face more evenly.

“Tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-colored, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them.” – Evelyn

“The door slowly opened, and a man bearing a tallow dip in a battered sconce showed himself in the entry.” – Howard Pease

“Sconces played a major part in the Serbian Revolution, countering the numerical superiority of the Turkish army” (Sconce).

“No sconce or fortress of his raising was ever known either to have been forced, or yielded up, or quitted.” – Milton

“[We] . . . must raise a sconce by the highway and sell switches.” – Beaumont and Fletcher

A sconce was usually applied to but one person and not the whole table.

You paid your sconce yet?

“Anyone feeling a sconce was deserved would be required to ask for its imposition” (Sconcing).

“The amount of a sconce varied from two imperial pints (1.1 l) at Corpus, Oriel, or Jesus, up to three and three-quarters imperial pints (2.1 l) at St John’s” (Sconcing).

“Several colleges retain impressive antique ‘sconce pots’ in their silver collections'” (Sconcing).

“I must get a sconce for my head” (Shakespeare, act 2, scene2).

That thick hair protected his sconce from the blow.

“A curled Sconce he hath, with angrie frowning browe” (Turberville).

“A pig-sconce was once a foolish or pigheaded person” (Waggoner).

If we add a dome, we’ll need four sconces.

With a loud bang, the floe broke into several sconces, which will drift out to the open ocean within the next few days.

“The sconce is where Billy and I put things for each other.” – Lilian Bell

“She cleared the sconce and took down the flitches that hung from the rannel-tree to dry.” – Sir Hall Caine

Corpus, Oriel, and Jesus measure a sconce as two imperial pints up to three and three-quarters imperial pints at St John’s (Sconcing).

Verb, transitive:
He would not trust this sconce neither in time nor tide.

“Immure him, sconce him, barricade him in ’t.” – Marston.

“The Dons sconced for small offences, e.g., five shillings for wearing a colored coat in hall at dinner-time” (Waggoner).

“Among undergrads a pun, an oath, or an indecent remark, was sconced by the head of the table” (Waggoner).

Breakfast items include freshly baked scones, muffins, and a cheese omelet as well as coffee, espresso, cappuccino, and latte.

Bake for 15 minutes, until the scones have risen and turned lightly golden.

“An earl grey scone and a lavender latte sound bloody marvelous” (Fitzsimmons).

“Jesson took the scone recipe and turned it into a mix, then packaged it with homemade jam and tea to be shipped” (Jackson).

He did his scone.

1. Late Middle English originally denoted a portable lantern with a screen to protect the flame and is a shortening of the Old French esconse meaning lantern, or from the medieval Latin sconsa, from the Latin absconsa (laterna) meaning dark (lantern), i.e., a lantern with a device for concealing the light, from abscondere meaning to hide.
2. Late Middle English from the Dutch schans meaning brushwood, from the Middle High German Schanze meaning “entrenchment, fieldwork, originally bundle of sticks or wood, fagot. The earliest recorded sense screen, interior partition derives perhaps from ¹; the later senses date from the late 16th century.
3. First recorded in 1610–20 and is of uncertain origin.
4. First recorded in 1560–70 and is of uncertain origin and probably a jocular use of ¹.