Moiré Pattern

The term originates from moire (moiré in its French adjectival form), a type of textile, traditionally of silk but now also of cotton or synthetic fiber, with a rippled or "watered" appearance. Moire, or "watered textile", is made by pressing two layers of the textile when wet. The similar but imperfect spacing of the threads creates a characteristic pattern which remains after the fabric dries.

In French, the adjective moiré (in use since at least 1823) derives from the earlier verb moirer, "to produce a watered textile by weaving or pressing". Moirer, in turn, is a variation of the word mouaire which is an adoption of the English mohair (in use since at least 1570). Mohair comes from the Arabic mukhayyar (مُخَيَّر, lit. "chosen"), a cloth made from the wool of the Angora goat. Mukhayyar (مُخَيَّر) descends from khayyara (خيّر, lit. "he chose"). "Chosen" is meant in the sense of "a choice, or excellent, cloth". It has also been suggested that the Arabic word was formed from the Latin marmoreus, meaning "like marble".

By 1660 (in the writings of Samuel Pepys), moire (or moyre) had been adopted in English. Moire (pronounced "mwar") and moiré (pronounced "mwar-ay") are now used somewhat interchangeably in English, though moire is more often used for the cloth and moiré for the pattern.

In the liquid crystal display industry, moiré is often referred to by the Japanese word mura, which roughly translates to "unevenness; irregularity; lack of uniformity; nonuniformity; inequality.”