Mosaic

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /məʊˈzeɪk/

Definitions

1. A pattern or image created by assembling small colored pieces of glass, stone, or tile, or anything composed of diverse elements forming a unified whole
2. An artwork created by arranging tiny chips of glass, stone, or tile to form a visible design ; a collection of varied parts that come together to create a single, unified entity
3. A decorative composition constructed from many small fragments set closely to depict a picture or pattern ; an assembly of different components combined to form one coherent structure

Etymology: The Muses, the nine Greek goddesses of the arts, gave their name to a shrine. In ancient Greece, "mouseion" was a place dedicated to them, and from it the Latin "museum" came to mean a place of learning or culture. The Latin word "musivum" was used for work made in the Muses' spirit, and it was applied to pictures built from small tesserae, the tiny stone or glass cubes laid into a bed of plaster. That sense passed into Medieval Latin and then Italian, where "mosaico" named the technique. Italian gave the word to French as "mosaïque," and English borrowed it from there. The result is a curious pairing: "museum" and "mosaic" are doublets, two English words that descend from the same ancient source by different routes, one through learned Latin and one through the craft tradition of the Latin-speaking and Italian worlds.

Synonyms: collage, patchwork