fabric

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers

   the fabric in the curtains was light and semitransparent

2. 2
   noun

   An edifice or building.

   Anon out of the earth a fabric huge / Rose like an exhalation.

3. 3
   noun

   The act of constructing, construction, fabrication.

   Tithe was received by the bishop […] for the fabric of the churches for the poor.

4. 4
   noun

   The structure of anything, the manner in which the parts of a thing are united; workmanship, texture, make.

   cloth of a beautiful fabric

5. 5
   noun

   The physical material of a building.

   This church dates back to the 11th century, though the great majority of its fabric is fifteenth century or later.

6. 6
   noun

   The framework underlying a structure.

   the fabric of our lives

7. 7
   noun

   A material made of fibers; especially, a woven one.

   Near-synonym: cloth (not always differentiated)

8. 8
   noun

   Interconnected nodes that look like a textile fabric when diagrammed.

   The Internet is a fabric of computers connected by routers.

Etymology

Borrowed from French fabrique, from Latin fabrica (“a workshop, art, trade, product of art, structure, fabric”), from faber (“artisan, workman”). Doublet of fabrica, borrowed from Latin, and forge, borrowed from Old French.