fabric

Etymology

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

noun

1. (now rare) An edifice or building.
   They withdrew from the gate, as if to depart, but he presently thought he heard them amongst the trees on the other side of the fabric, and soon became convinced that they had not left the abbey. 1791, Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, Oxford 1999, page 86
2. (archaic) The act of constructing, construction, fabrication.
3. (archaic) The structure of anything, the manner in which the parts of a thing are united; workmanship, texture, make.
   cloth of a beautiful fabric
4. 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.
5. (figurative) The framework underlying a structure.
   the fabric of our lives
   the fabric of the universe
6. A material made of fibers, a textile or cloth.
   cotton fabric
7. The texture of a cloth.
8. (petrology) The appearance of crystalline grains in a rock.
9. (computing) Interconnected nodes that look like a textile fabric when diagrammed.
   The Internet is a fabric of computers connected by routers.

verb

1. (transitive) To cover with fabric.
   Fabricking and Carpeting a Room. If your ballroom's walls are in need of a paint job, or the space feels cavernous, or your tent is just looking too bare, you can have the ceiling and walls draped with fabric to create an intimate enclave. 2016, Mindy Weiss, Lisbeth Levine, The Wedding Book