Fabric

How to spell fabric

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fabric

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fabric mean?

1. nounCloth or other material produced by weaving or knitting fibres.
2. nounThe basic underlying structure or framework of something, such as a building or society.

Fabric in a sentence

• The curtains were made from a heavy cotton fabric.

• Corruption threatened to weaken the very fabric of the government.

• She chose a soft fabric for the baby's blanket.

• Surveyors inspected the fabric of the old church for damage.

Where does fabric come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin fabrica, which meant a workshop or the craft practised in it, and ultimately to faber, a worker in hard materials such as a smith or carpenter. The original idea was therefore something skilfully made or constructed rather than cloth specifically. English borrowed it through French fabrique in the fifteenth century, and at first 'fabric' referred to a building or its structure, a sense that survives in phrases about the fabric of a church. Only in the seventeenth century did the meaning narrow towards woven cloth, the everyday textile sense we use most today. The same Latin root gives us 'fabricate' and 'forge', and remembering that craftsman origin helps fix the single 'b' and the plain '-ic' ending, with no doubled letters to worry about.

How the word is built

• fabr- (from Latin faber: craftsman, smith)
• -ic (noun/adjective suffix)