MORESQUE, or Morisco**, a kind of painting, carving, or other similar work executed after the manner of the Moors, and consisting of several grotesque pieces with compartments promiscuously intermingled, containing not any perfect figure of a man or other animal, but only a wild resemblance of birds, beasts, trees, and the like. These are also called *arabesques*, and are particularly used in embroideries, damask, and other work of a similar kind.

**MORESQUE Dances**, vulgarly called *morrice dances*, are those arranged in imitation of the Moors, as sarabands, chacons, &c. and usually performed with castanets, tambours, and other instruments. There are few country places in England where the morrice dance is not known. It was probably introduced about the reign of Henry VIII.; and is a dance executed by young men in their shirts, with bells at their feet, and ribands of various colours tied round their arms, or hung across their shoulders.