- The definition of a mosaic is artwork made by placing colored pieces such as stone, glass or tile into a design and then setting the design in mortar.
An example of a mosaic is the dragon at the entrance of Antoni Gaudi's Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain.
- the process of making pictures or designs by inlaying small bits of colored stone, glass, tile, etc. in mortar
- inlaid work made by this process
- a picture or design so made
- anything resembling this, as a number of aerial photographs pieced together to show a continuous area
- Biol. chimera ()
- Bot. any of the viral diseases that cause wrinkling or mottling of leaves
- TV the photosensitive plate in an iconoscope or other television camera tube
Origin of mosaicLate Middle English musycke ; from Old French musique ; from Medieval Latin musaicum, altered ; from Late Latin musivum, mosaic, origin, originally neuter of Classical Latin musivus, artistic, of a muse ; from Classical Latin musa, muse: spelling, spelled altered by associated, association with French mosaïque ; from Italian mosaico ; from same Medieval Latin source
Origin of MosaicEcclesiastical Late Latin Mosaicus ; from Ecclesiastical Greek Mōsaikos
- a. A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.b. The process or art of making such pictures or designs.
- A composite picture made of overlapping, usually aerial, photographs.
- Something that resembles a mosaic: a mosaic of testimony from various witnesses.
- Botany A viral disease of plants, resulting in light and dark areas in the leaves, which often become shriveled and dwarfed.
- An array of photosensitive elements in a video camera that react to light and are scanned by other components to compose an image.
- Biology An individual exhibiting mosaicism.
transitive verbmo·sa·icked, mo·sa·ick·ing, mo·sa·ics
- To make by mosaic: mosaic a design on a rosewood box.
- To adorn with or as if with mosaic: mosaic a sidewalk.
Origin of mosaicMiddle English musycke, from Old French mosaique, from Old Italian mosaico, from Medieval Latin mūsāicum, neuter of mūsāicus, of the Muses, from Latin Mūsa, Muse, from Greek Mousa; see men-1 in Indo-European roots.
detail of the concert hall Palau de la Música Catalana
- A piece of artwork created by placing colored squares (usually tiles) in a pattern so as to create a picture.
- (genetics) An individual composed of two or more cell lines of different genetic or chromosomal constitution, but from the same zygote.
- (botany) A viral disease of plants.
- A composite picture made from overlapping photographs.
From Middle French mosaïque, from Italian mosaico, from Medieval Latin musaicum, from Late Latin musivum (opus), from Latin museum, musaeum, probably from Ancient Greek Μουσεῖον (Mouseîon), shrine of the Muses (Μοῦσα (Moûsa)).
From Middle French mosaïque, moysaique. English from the 17th century.
mosaic - Computer Definition
An Internet browser that provides a consistent user interface available in versions to support Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, and Unix
The Web browser created by Marc Andreessen, Eric Bina and others at the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It was the first multimedia browser for the Web, allowing text, images, sound and video to be accessed via a graphical user interface. The "Killer App" of the Web Mosaic was released on the Internet in 1993 and became "the" application that caused the Web to explode. Originally developed for Unix, it was ported to Windows and Mac within a few months. Both Andreessen and Bina later went to work for Mosaic Corporation, which was formed to market Mosaic, but wound up developing the Netscape browser. The company was renamed Netscape, and the Netscape browser reigned supreme for a while. The University eventually licensed Mosaic to Spyglass, Inc., which Microsoft acquired. Thus, the Mosaic browser ultimately evolved into Internet Explorer. See Web browser and Netscape.