MOSAIC, or Mosaic Work, an assemblage of little pieces of glass, marble, precious stones, and other substances, of various colours, cut square, and cemented on a ground of stucco, in such a manner as to imitate the colours and gradations of painting. The critics are divided as to the origin and reason of the name. Some derive it from mosaicum, a corruption of musaicum, as that is of musicum. Scaliger derives it from the Greek μωσα, and imagines that the name was given to this sort of works, as being very fine and ingenious. Nibricensis is of opinion that it was so called because ex illis picturis ornabatur musca.