What's a "lamp break"?

(it doesn't mean broken)

Several of the molds sold at the L.G. Wright auction were listed as "lamp break". We had several questions about this term but couldn't find it in any glass book.

Author Johanna Billings helped run down the term. A "lamp break" is a decorative spacer most commonly used to separate or divide bases but is also used between other lamp parts. Lamp breaks can be any material including glass, metal, stone, etc.

A typical glass lamp break is shown below (arrow). It separates the glass font from the cast metal base.