mosaicyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[mosaic 词源字典]
mosaic: [16] Mosaic work is etymologically work ‘of the muses’. The word comes ultimately from Greek mouseion, which originally meant literally ‘place of the muses’, and has also given English museum. Somehow in medieval Latin it became altered to mūsaicus or mōsaicus, and passed via early modern Italian mosaico and French mosaïque into English as mosaic. It has no etymological connection, incidentally, with Mosaic ‘of Moses’ [17].
=> muse, museum[mosaic etymology, mosaic origin, 英语词源]
mosaic (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1400, from Old French mosaicq "mosaic work," from Italian mosaico, from Medieval Latin musaicum "mosaic work, work of the Muses," noun use of neuter of musaicus "of the Muses," from Latin Musa (see muse). Medieval mosaics were often dedicated to the Muses. The word formed in Medieval Latin as though from Greek, but the (late) Greek word for "mosaic work" was mouseion (Klein says this sense was borrowed from Latin). Figurative use is from 1640s. As an adjective in English from 1580s. Related: Mosaicist.
Mosaic (adj.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
"pertaining to Moses," 1660s (earlier Mosaical, 1560s), from Modern Latin Mosaicus, from Moses.