| 释义 |
▪ I. mosaic, a.1 and n.|məʊˈzeɪɪk|
Forms: α. 5 musycke, 6 mousaique, 6–7 musaique, 7 musaic(k, musai(c)ke; β. 6–8 mosaique, 7 mosaiq, mosaike, 7–8 (9) mosaick, 7– mosaic.
[a. F. mosaïque adj., used subst. in masc. (OF. mosaicq, musaicq, musec, music adj., used subst. in masc. and fem.) = Pr. muzec adj., Sp. mosáico (used subst. in fem.), Pr. mosaico (used subst. in fem.), It. mosaico, musaico (used subst. in masc.), ad. med.L. mosaicus, mūsaicus, as if a. Gr. *µουσαϊκός f. *µουσαῖος by-form of µούσειος pertaining to the muses (cf. late Gr. µουσεῖον mosaic work, whence late L. opus mūsīvum in the same sense), f. µοῦσα muse n.]
A. adj.
1. a. Pertaining to that form of art in which pictures and decorative patterns are produced by the joining together of minute pieces of glass, stone, or other hard substances of different colours; produced by this method.
1585T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. i. xvi. 17 b, The court is pauid with Mosaique stone. Ibid. ii. xx. 57 S. Sophia..within is most artificially made with Mosaique figures. 1615G. Sandys Trav. 31 Mosaike painting: an antique kind of worke, composed of little square peeces of marble. 1665Sir T. Herbert Trav. (1677) 63 A stately monument, graced with three fair Courts, each of which is paved with stone, the outside Fabrick (after the Persian mode) being pargettred or plaistered, and polished in Mosaick order. a1680Butler Rem. (1759) I. 173 And join it by Mosaic Art, In graceful Order, Part to Part. 1703Maundrell Journ. Jerus. 18 Mar. (1721) 43 We saw many Granite Pillars and remnants of Mosaick Floors. 1816Byron Siege Cor. xxxi, The vaults beneath the mosaic stone Contain'd the dead of ages gone. 1845Stocqueler Handbk. Brit. India (1854) 330 The inlaid or Mosaic work-boxes, card-cases, writing-desks, &c. 1893Archæologia LIII. 566 The mosaic panel is not worn at all.
b. fig.
1644Bulwer Chiron. 141 And from it Eloquence receives her beauteous colours, her Musive or Mosaique Excellency. 1710Hearne Collect. (O.H.S.) III. 41 After a farrago of English, Greek, and Latin—‘You'l pardon this way of writing—I never use it but in an Epistolary Way. I rem. a Gent. lately found fault wth it: and call'd it Mosaic’. 1824Carlyle Misc., Richter (1869) 16 Let the mosaic brain of old Burton give forth the workings of this strange union. 1882W. T. Dobson Poet. Ingenuities 225 The next..is a mosaic compilation from poems written to the memory of Robert Burns.
c. Resembling the colours or patterns of mosaic work.
c1890tr. T. de Dillmont's Encycl. Needlework 133 Mosaic stitch.., the first row consists of one short and one long stitch, alternately; the second, of short stitches only, set between the long stitches of the first row; the third row is a repetition of the first, and so on. 1900E. Jackson Hist. Hand-Made Lace 127 The Lace resembling Duchesse made in Venice in the present day is called Mosaic lace, on account of small sprigs being used to build up the pattern as the pieces of stone and glass are used in Mosaic work. 1934M. Thomas Dict. Embroidery Stitches 151 Mosaic filling, a drawn fabric stitch. 1960H. Hayward Antique Coll. 191/1 Mosaic binding, book-binding with polychrome decoration. 1961J. Carter ABC for Bk.-Collectors (ed. 3) 136 Mosaic bindings, leather bindings decorated with contrasting colours, whether inlaid, onlaid or painted.
2. mosaic wool-work: a kind of work used in rugs, carpets, and the like, in which coloured threads are arranged side by side so that the cross-section shows a pattern resembling that of mosaic. So mosaic carpet, etc. mosaic canvas: see quot.
1864Webster, Mosaic wool-work. 1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 390/2 This is..the plan on which the so-called ‘mosaic carpet’ is made. 1882Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlework, Mosaic Canvas, the finest descriptions of canvas employed for Embroidery, whether of silk, thread, or cotton, have acquired the popular appellation of Mosaic.
3. Applied to a variety of tile (see quot.).
1875Knight Dict. Mech., Mosaic Tile, a tile molded with different colored clays, arranged in patterns in imitation of the associated pieces of colored stones in true mosaic. 1903Edin. Even. News 12 Oct. 4 A mosaic tile layer.
4. mosaic vision: the manner of vision of the compound eye of an arthropod. mosaic theory: any theory in explanation of the vision of arthropods with compound eyes.
1880Huxley Crayfish iii. 12 The theory of mosaic vision propounded by Johannes Müller. 1888Lubbock Senses Anim. vii. (1889) 166 Plateau regards the mosaic theory of Müller as definitely abandoned, but seems rather to have had in his mind that of Gottsche.
5. Embryol. Of, pertaining to, or characterized by that mode of development in which regions in an embryo are predetermined by the corresponding regions in that embryo at an earlier stage of development.
1893Jrnl. Morphol. VIII. 579 (heading) Amphioxus, and the mosaic theory of development. 1904Jrnl. Exper. Zoöl. I. 2 Similar views were more or less clearly expressed by Van Beneden, Flemming, Platner and others prior to the definite formulation of the mosaic-theory of development by Roux in 1888. Ibid. Such ‘mosaic eggs’ as those of mollusks or ctenophores. 1933J. H. Woodger tr. L. von Bertalanffy's Mod. Theories Development x. 143 After injury we obtain partial embryos from mosaic eggs and whole embryos from the regulative ones. 1963J. Cohen Living Embryos 11 In the Annelid worms and the Molluscs, almost all of the interactions between parts of the egg occur before cleavage commences, and in consequence, if the cells are separated at the 4-cell or 8-cell stage they have already been determined in their fates and can only produce parts of animals. This kind of development is called determinate or mosaic, and is also shown by many primitive Chordates. 1970Ambrose & Easty Cell Biol. xiii. 422 Eggs of this kind, in which the cytoplasm is clearly divided into different regions required for the development of specific regions of the embryo, are known as mosaic eggs.
6. mosaic disease [tr. G. mosaikkrankheit (A. Mayer 1886, in Die Landwirtschaftlichen Versuchsstationen XXXII. 453)], a virus disease affecting plants, characterized by a mottled pattern of discoloration on the leaves; also absol.; cf. tobacco mosaic (tobacco 3).
1894Jrnl. Mycol. VII. 382 The first symptom [of tobacco mosaic] is a geographic or mosaic coloring of the leaf surface, light and dark green... The name ‘mosaic disease’ was given by Dr. Mayer. 1925Contemp. Rev. Dec. 753 Cuba..is finding soil depletion and mosaic disease increasingly serious matters. 1930Discovery June 196/1 The first virus disease to be discovered was the ‘mosaic’ of tobacco, which manifests itself in a bright mottling and spotting of the foliage. 1940Sun (Baltimore) 29 Jan. 5/6 First reports of a new disease spreading into Pennsylvania peach orchards have located the dread ‘mosaic’ in the Spring Grove section of York county. 1970Liebscher & Koehler tr. Fröhlich & Rodenwald's Pests & Diseases of Tropical Crops 39 A number of virus diseases, such as mosaic disease, infectious chlorosis, and ‘heart rot’, manifest themselves by retarded growth, discoloration, and leaf curl.
7. Biol. Having or composed of cells of two genetically different types.
1902W. Bateson et al. Rep. Evolution Comm. R. Soc. I. 23 Among the large number of capsules examined, there were some of the mosaic type, in which part of the capsule was prickly and the remainder smooth. Ibid. 127 ‘Mosaic’ fruits in Datura, where..the otherwise pure extracted recessives (thornless) showed exceptionally a thorny patch... Such a phenomenon may be taken as indicating that the germ-cells may also have been mosaic. 1926, etc. [see chimera, chimæra 3 d]. 1968[see gynandromorph s.v. gynandro-]. 1969New Scientist 16 Jan. 133/1 Cytogeneticists have found human mosaic individuals. 1974S. L. Robbins Pathologic Basis Dis. vi. 178/1 Nondisjunction after zygote formation yields a mosaic individual who has more than one chromosome count in his body cells.
8. Photogr. mosaic screen, a screen containing a pattern of small filters of each of the primary colours which was placed in front of the emulsion for both exposure and viewing in some methods of colour photography; so mosaic process.
1908Brit. Jrnl. Photogr. Suppl. 3 Jan. 13 To make the Krayn mosaic screen..line-screens are again cemented together and form a block. 1935Discovery July 188/2 The well-known ‘screen’ or ‘mosaic’ processes, in which the photograph is recorded through a regular or irregular pattern of coloured rulings or grains. 1942C. B. Neblette Photography (ed. 4) xxxii. 786 The irregular mosaic screens are made from a mixture of small colored particles. 1957R. W. G. Hunt Reprod. Colour iii. 30 In photography, the mosaic processes have had a long and distinguished career.
9. Chiefly Aerial Photogr. Applied to a composite photograph made up of a number of separate photographs of overlapping areas.
1920H. E. Ives Airplane Photography xxvi. 316 (heading) Arranging prints for a mosaic map. 1930Air Ann. British Empire 207 A photographic survey was made for a railway company, the mosaic strip..being produced on a scale of 130 inches to the mile. 1934Discovery June 15/1 The chief photographic contribution..is an aerial mosaic map of an area of about 200 square miles. 1972Sci. Amer. Mar. 10/2 In the past six months the first complete aerial-mosaic map of Manhattan Island has been assembled, and photographic prints are being made on a scale that brings out a wealth of interesting detail.
10. Ecol. Applied to an area in which plant associations occur in an alternating pattern.
1930G. E. du Rietz in Svensk Bot. Tidskr. XXIV. 496 Phytocoenose-complexes are vegetational units consisting of phytocoenoses with little or no relationship to each other but more or less regularly alternating. They are of several kinds. Good examples for [sic] mosaic complexes are furnished by the..Scandinavian bogs, maritime rocks, etc. 1970P. Oliver Savannah Syncopators 41 As one moves north from the rain forest and into the tropical woodlands and savannah mosaic regions, the trees become fewer and smaller.
11. Cryst. Applied to (the structure of) crystals made up of small blocks of perfect lattices set at very slight angles to one another.
1934W. P. Davey Study Cryst. Struct. & Applic. xii. 363 It will be of interest..to examine the various ways in which crystals may be grown in the hope of finding mechanisms of crystal growth which will lead easily to the mosaic type rather than the perfect type of structure. 1938W. A. Wooster Text-bk. Crystal Physics ii. 62 The mosaic crystal was imagined to be built up of a number of small blocks of perfect crystal, of not more than some 500 a.u. side, arranged nearly parallel to each other. 1964R. C. Evans Introd. Crystal. Chem. (ed. 2) ix. 206 As normally prepared, a crystal has a pronounced mosaic structure. 1970R. A. Laudise Growth Single Crystals i. 17 There is a continuous series of states of order between mosaic structures and structures showing conventional low-angle grain boundaries.
12. Biol. mosaic evolution (see quots.).
1963E. Mayr Animal Species & Evolution xix. 598 There is not a steady and harmonious change of all parts of the ‘type’, as envisioned by the school of idealistic morphology, but rather a ‘mosaic evolution’. Every evolutionary type is a mosaic of primitive and advanced characters, of general and specialized features. 1971J. Z. Young Introd. Study Man xxxiii. 457 The human character appears in some features (the gait) before others (size of brain); this is the phenomenon called mosaic evolution.
B. n. (= mosaic work.)
1. a. The process of producing pictures or decorative patterns by cementing together small pieces of stone, glass, or other hard material of various colours; pictures or patterns produced in this manner; the constructive or decorative material composed of small pieces of coloured material cemented together.
c1400Destr. Troy 1662 Within this palis of prise was a proude halle,..With a flore þat was fret all of fyne stones, Pauyt prudly all with proude colours, Made after musycke, men on to loke. 1585T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. ii. vii. 37 b, A church..which esteemed to be the fayrest..in al those Ilands.., being artificially made of Mosaique. Ibid. ii. xx. 57 The Images of Mosaique and other flat pictures. 1596Danett tr. Comines (1614) 279 It is built throughout of the curious worke called Musaique [marg. Mousaique], or Marqueterie. 1687A. Lovell tr. Thevenot's Trav. i. 141 The seeling..is in many places gilt and painted in Mosaick. 1756Nugent Gr. Tour, Italy III. 53 The name of Mosaic is given to all works composed of little inlaid pieces, whether they be of stone, wood, ivory, enamel, or any other natural or artificial matter. 1832G. Downes Lett. Cont. Countries I. 282 Some of the apartments are painted in fresco, with floors in mosaic. 1845Stocqueler Handbk. Brit. India (1854) 330 The Mosaic is sometimes used as a sort of veneer over the whole surface of an article, and at others, simply as an inlaid bordering on cedar or ivory. 1883Encycl. Brit. XVI. 854/2 The modern so-called ‘Roman mosaic’ is formed of short and slender sticks of coloured glass fixed in cement, the ends, which form the pattern, being finally rubbed down and polished.
b. transf. and fig.
1667Milton P.L. iv. 700 Each beauteous flour, Iris all hues, Roses, and Gessamin Rear'd high thir flourisht heads between, and wrought Mosaic. a1711Ken Sion Poet. Wks. 1721 IV. 332 From various Flowers which she together brought, In sweet Mosaick she a story wrought. 1753Hogarth Anal. Beauty iv. 23 The pine-apple, which nature has particularly distinguished by bestowing ornaments of rich mosaic upon it. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 489 The disc of bone removed was cut into pieces and packed in mosaic in the wound [sc. a trephine-hole in the skull].
c. Applied to work in various other materials analogous to mosaic in method of production, or resembling it in appearance; usually with defining word, as paper mosaic, straw mosaic, wood mosaic, wool mosaic.
1727–52Chambers Cycl. s.v., Mosaic work of wood, more properly called marquetry, or inlaid work. 1875W. Bemrose (title) Mosaicon: or paper mosaic, and how to make it. 1875Knight Dict. Mech. s.v., The Tunbridge wood-mosaic is made of colored parallelopipeds of wood glued together so as to show a pattern at their ends or sections.
2. a. A piece of mosaic work; a design in mosaic.
1699M. Lister Journ. Paris 124 By the application of a good Eye-glass, I could readily distinguish the squares of all colours, as in other Mosaiques. 1756Burke Subl. & B. ii. xvi, Much of guilding, mosaicks, painting, or statues, contribute but little to the sublime. 1762–71H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) II. 30 note, [He] fitted up entire windows with them, and with mosaics of plain glass of different colours. 1841W. Spalding Italy & It. Isl. I. 155 A Mosaic lately found, representing one of Alexander's battles. 1874J. T. Micklethwaite Mod. Par. Churches 318 Modern mosaics have nearly always a great deal of gold.
b. transf. and fig.
a1678Marvell Appleton House 582 What Rome, Greece, Palestine, ere said I in this light Mosaick read. 1774Burke Sp. Amer. Taxation 40 He [Pitt in 1766] made an administration, so checkered..; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified Mosaic;..that it was indeed a very curious show. 1853Ruskin Stones Ven. II. vi. §8. 156 We do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration. 1882W. T. Dobson Poet. Ingenuities 224 Centones or Mosaics. 1882Farrar Early Chr. I. 352 He does so in a mosaic of magnificent quotations from the..Psalms. 1896tr. Boas' Zool. 384 The buccal teeth are low knobs (sometimes pointed) or plates, which are arranged in several rows and form a mosaic over the edges of the jaws.
3. a. In various scientific uses.
1877Foster Phys. iii. ii. (1878) 420 The mosaic of rods and cones is the basis of distinct vision. 1888Lubbock Senses Anim. vii. (1889) 166 Plateau..states that, according to Müller, the mosaic [sc. the image presented by the compound eye of an arthropod] is formed by a number of partial images, each occupying the base of one of the elements composing the compound eye. 1891Syd. Soc. Lex., Mosaic of muscle compartments, the polygonal areas surrounded by dark lines seen on fresh section of a muscular fibre, without addition of reagents or with acetic acid alone. Ibid., Mosaic of pigment cells of eye, the appearance presented by the inner surface of the choroid tunic.
b. Biol. An individual (commonly an animal) composed of cells of two genetically different types. Cf. chimera, chimæra 3 d.
1902W. Bateson et al. Rep. Evolution Comm. R. Soc. I. 23 These mosaics occurred as rarities both on prickly individuals and on smooth ones still more rarely. 1946R. R. Gates Human Genetics I. ix. 281 Case I. 1 was an albino and it is said that two of her children were albino mosaics, the girl having half her hair white and half black, with one blue eye and one black. 1949Darlington & Mather Elem. Genetics v. 112 In animals the effects of somatic mutation are slightly different [from those in plants]... The changed cells give flakes and sectors instead of layers and the product is known as a mosaic instead of a chimaera. 1968New Scientist 14 Nov. 383/2 Chimaeras, or mosaics—animals containing cells from two sets of parents—have been made experimentally before. 1974S. L. Robbins Pathologic Basis Dis. vi. 187/2 Approximately 2 per cent of ‘mongoloids’ are mosaics (trisomy 21/normal).
c. Photogr. = mosaic screen (in A. 8 above).
1911A. Watkins Photography (ed. 5) xii. 227 The Thames colour plate. This is a regular mosaic, formed by three printings (each being dyed) on bichromated colloid; the pattern originating with a 200-line half-tone screen. 1957R. W. G. Hunt Reprod. Colour iii. 30 The Autochrome plate, which consisted of a random mosaic of red, green and blue starch grains with the interstices filled with carbon black, came on the market in 1907. 1973D. A. Spencer Focal Dict. Photogr. Technol. 395 After exposure through this mosaic the emulsion is reversal processed to a positive transparency.
d. Chiefly Aerial Photogr. A mosaic map or photograph (see A. 9 above).
1920H. E. Ives Airplane Photography xxvi. 316 For a mosaic of any size an accurate outline map must be drawn on the surface of which the prints are to be attached. 1920Flight XII. 187/2 He then showed the similarities and differences between a photographic mosaic and a map, and outlined the various difficulties that had to be contended with. 1940War Illustr. 2 Feb. 45 The map-like pictures are afterwards assembled in a big mosaic..which forms a complete plan of the area photographed. 1971R. Dentry Encounter at Kharmel vii. 113 The Yanks updated their U2 mosaic of the area. 1972Nature 18 Feb. 391/2 Electron micrographs of the inner plexiform layer at a magnification of 25,000 times were used to construct mosaics covering the area from the ganglion cell layer to the vitreal margin.
e. An array of many small photo-emissive metal plates, each of which temporarily stores a charge dependent on the amount of light falling on it, that forms the target plate in some television camera tubes (e.g. the iconoscope); also, an array of piezo-electric transducers in a detector of ultrasound.
1928Discovery Nov. 337/1 Carey's idea was to replace the mosaic of the retina by a mosaic of a large number of minute selenium cells..and, further, to replace the nerve fibres by separately insulated electric wires carrying an electric current from a battery, and to use this device to vary the light given by a number of very minute electric lamps..so placed that each lamp would correspond in position to each of the selenium cells. 1933Proc. Wireless Section Inst. Electr. Engin. VIII. 220/2 The charge acquired by each element of the mosaic is released by the cathode-ray beam once in each repetition of the picture. 1953Amos & Birkinshaw Television Engineering i. iv. 54 The mosaic must be of very fine construction with a number of individual cells to each element otherwise the cells show up in the reproduced image as a grain. 1961G. N. Patchett Television Servicing III. vii. 197 The mosaic is composed of antimony islands which are made photo⁓sensitive with caesium. 1966McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. XIII. 464/2 The mosaic is electrically coupled to the signal plate by electrostatic capacitance between the two. 1969J. S. Wood tr. L. D. Rozenberg's Sources of High-Intensity Ultrasound II. ii. iv. 215 The construction of ultrasonic receivers in which a kind of ‘mosaic’ was used, consisting of several piezoelectric cylinders mounted on a large-diameter diaphragm.
4. Comb., as mosaic-drawn, mosaic-floored, mosaic-like, mosaic-paved.
1726Pope Odyss. xix. 265 In the rich woof a hound, *Mosaic-drawn Bore on full stretch, and seized a dappled fawn.
1888Pall Mall G. 1 Feb. 5/2 A glass-covered, *mosaic-floored, plant-furnished promenade.
1901Scribner's Mag. XXIX. 512/2 A delicate *mosaic-like effect was obtained.
1803M. Charlton Wife & Mistress IV. 157 Ponderous gates, that led into a *Mosaic-paved court.
▪ II. moˈsaic, v. rare.
[f. mosaic a.1 and n.]
1. trans. To adorn with mosaics. Also transf.
1839Tait's Mag. VI. 255 A cottage..embosomed, or rather matted and mosaicked, by roses and honeysuckles. c1850Arab. Nts. (Rtldg.) 239 Its walks were mosaicked with small stones of various colours. 1890Freeman in W. R. W. Stephens Life & Lett. (1895) II. 418 It also wants William the Bad to mosaic the walls. 1895A. C. Wilson 5 Years India 294 A boy with a face mosaiced out in different squares of colour like a clown.
2. To combine as if into a mosaic; also, to produce by such combination.
1841Motley Corr. 18 Nov., Prussia..is new, and an artifical patchwork, without natural coherence, mosaiced out of bought, stolen, and plundered provinces. 1867Even. Stand. 13 July 3 After all the rest of the world had been created the best bits were neatly cut out and mosaicked, so as to form Arcachon. 1889W. S. Gilbert Foggerty's Fairy, etc. (1892) 331 They have mosaiced a hundred of his pithy apophthegms into our daily conversation. |