English▸ noun [mass noun]
1 cloth or other material produced by weaving or knitting fibres:
heavy cream fabric
[count noun] stretch fabrics.
2 the walls, floor, and roof of a building:
decay and neglect are slowly eating away at the building's fabric.
▪ the body of a car or aircraft:
we heard creaking and rushing noises in the car's fabric.
▪ the basic structure of a society, culture, activity, etc.:
the multicultural fabric of Canadian society.
– ORIGIN late 15th century: from French fabrique, from Latin fabrica ‘something skilfully produced’, from faber ‘worker in metal, stone, etc.’ The word originally denoted a building, later a machine, the general sense being ‘something made’, hence fabric (sense 1 of the noun) (mid 18th century, originally denoting any manufactured material). fabric (sense 2 of the noun) dates from the mid 17th century.