Fabric sb.

Forms: 5–6 fabrike, -yke, 6–7 fabrique, (7 fabriq), 7–8 fabrick(e, 7- fabric. [a. Fr. fabrique (= Pr. fabriga, It. fabbrica, Sp. fábrica), ad. L. fabrica, f. faber worker in metal, stone, wood, etc. See FORGE sb.]

  I.  A product of skilled workmanship.

  1.  An edifice, a building.

1483.  Caxton, Gold. Leg., 275/1. He had neuer studye in newe fabrykes ne buyldynges.

1538.  Leland, Itin., II. 68. Gibbes the last Prior ther, that spent a great summe of Mony on that Fabrike.

1666.  Evelyn, Diary, 7 Sept. The august fabriq of Christ Church.

1708.  J. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., II. I. ii. (1743), 326. There are many Obelisks still standing, and many old Fabricks, which are said to have been built by the Picts.

1756.  Nugent, Gr. Tour, IV. 84. It [the observatory] is a vaulted fabric without wood or iron-work, three stories high.

1813.  Scott, Trierm., III. xvi.

1865.  Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. vi. The ruinous fabric was very rich in the interior.

  fig.  1611.  Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 429.

1664.  H. More, Myst. Iniq., 91. Prophets and Evangelists, men in a special manner inspired and assisted to erect the Fabrick of the Church according to the will and purpose of Christ, who then in an extraordinary manner did supervise all by a miraculous assistence of his Spirit.

1788.  Reid, Aristotle’s Log., ii. § 2. 30. Peter Ramus, who had the spirit of a reformer in philosophy, and who had force of genius sufficient to shake the Aristotelian fabric in many parts.

1873.  Burton, Hist. Scot., VI. lxviii. 126. The fatal alternative had come, and the whole fabric of his ambition was tottering.

  † 2.  A contrivance; an engine or appliance. Obs.

1596.  Drayton, Legends, iv. 721.

1600.  Holland, Livy, XXV. xi. 553. When … [the city of Tarentum] began to be assailed with fabricks, and artillerie devised of all sorts. Ibid. (1603), Plutarch’s Mor., 1243. What need had he to use any such tragique engine, or fabricke to work such feats.

1657.  Reeve, God’s Plea, 40. Tiberius … there invented his detestable Fabricks of lust.

  3.  ‘Any body formed by the conjunction of dissimilar parts’ (J.); a frame, structure.

1633.  G. Herbert, Temple, The Search, vii.

1674.  Owen, Holy Spirit (1693), 25–6. This Goodly Fabrick of Heaven and Earth was brought by Divine Power and Wisdom through Darkness and Confusion out of nothing.

1718.  Prior, Solomon, III. 268.

1728–46.  Thomson, Spring, 648.

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., l. (1856), 476. In this egg-shell fabric the Esquimaux navigator habitually, and fearlessly, and successfully too, encounters risks which his more civilized rivals in the seal-hunt, the men of New Bedford and Stonington, would rightfully shrink from.

1863.  P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 241. The different grooves and rebates necessary for receiving the armour-plates and other necessary portions of the ponderous fabric were cut out and adjusted with the most perfect success and accuracy.

  b.  esp. with reference to the animal body.

1695.  Ld. Preston, Boeth., II. 84. The whole Fabrick of Man, Body and Soul, is dissolv’d.

1758.  S. Hayward, Serm., i. 1. How careful are many to view and examine this outward fabric the body, with all its various surprising parts! but never inquire into their state God-wards!

a. 1848.  R. W. Hamilton, Rew. & Punishm., i. (1853), 49. We disparage not the wonderful fabric of the human body.

1878.  Huxley, Physiography, 228. The solid animal fabric returns to swell the sum of the fluids and gases.

  c.  fig.

a. 1637.  B. Jonson, Eng. Gramm., I. ii. The less [letters] make the Fabrick of Speech.

1669.  Penn, No Cross, xii. § 10. Death ends the Proud Man’s Fabrick.

1785.  Reid, Int. Powers, Ded. I conceive the sceptical writers to be a set of men whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty.

1817.  J. Scott, Paris Revisit. (ed. 4), 380. The settlement of a substantial fabric of public strength, freedom, and opulence.

1856.  Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., I. iii. 77. Questions arising out of it appertaining not only to individuals, but to the whole fabric of society.

  4.  A manufactured material; now only a ‘textile fabric,’ a woven stuff.

1753.  Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. V. lxx. 318. We are every day making new fabrics, and shew great art and fertility of invention in articles of less moment.

1791.  Robertson, India, ii. 88. They observed the labours of the silk-worm, and became aquainted with all the arts of man in working up its productions into such a variety of elegant fabrics.

1832.  G. R. Porter, Porcelain & Gl., 10. The fabrics produced in which, although of beautiful external appearance, were wanting in most of the qualities essential to good porcelain.

1837.  Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., II. 227. The woollen fabric manufactured in these establishments was, at the same time, one hundred and fifty thousand yards.

1874.  Green, Short Hist., v. 218. Up to Edward’s time few woollen fabrics seem to have been woven in England.

1883.  Stubbs’ Mercantile Circular, 8 Nov., 982/2. The people in Nagasaki are fast going back to their old practice of spinning this class of fabric for themselves.

  transf. and fig.  1831.  Brewster, Nat. Magic, ii. (1833), 18. The fine nervous fabric which constitutes the retina, and which extends to the brain, has the singular property of being phosphorescent by pressure.

1859.  Kingsley, Misc. (1860), II. 119. The villain of the piece, and being a rough fabric, is easily manufactured with rough tools.

  II.  5. The action or process of framing or constructing; erection (of a building); formation (of an animal body or its parts). Now only spec. The construction and maintenance (of a church); = Eccl. Lat. fabrica ecclesiæ.

1611.  Cotgrave, Fabrique d’vu’Esglise. The fabricke, raparation, or maintenance of a Church.

1650.  J. Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis, V. 72. If we examine the uses of Haire in these parts, we shall soon perceive the folly and madness of these nations, who to their own shame and prejudice, have rejected the naturall benefits intended them by the wisdome and providence of God, manifested in the Fabrique of the Eye-lids.

1664.  Power, Experimental Philosophy, I. 17. The strange and most prodigious skilfulness of Nature in the fabrick of so Minute an Animal.

1730.  A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 43. He attributed the Fabrick of the Colosseum to him.

1757.  Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., I. ii. I cannot help thinking it somewhat extraordinary, and not easily to be accounted for, that the Britains should have been so expert in the fabrick of those chariots, when they seem utterly ignorant in all other mechanick arts.

1840.  Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), III. V. i. 93. The Bishop alone had in general the title to the distribution of the tithes, one-third, usually, to himself and his clergy (of his clergy’s necessities and his own he was the sole, not always impartial or liberal judge); one to the Fabric, the whole buildings of the See; one to the Poor.

  b.  attrib. in fabric-fund, -lands, -roll.

1672.  Cowel, Interpr., Fabrick-Lands are Lands given to the rebuilding, repair, or maintenance of Cathedrals, or other Churches.

1726.  Dict. Rusticum, s.v.

1848.  Wharton, Law Lex., Fabric Lands [ad fabricam reparandum] property given towards the rebuilding or repairing of cathedrals and churches.

1859.  Raine (title), The Fabric Rolls of York Minster (Surtees).

1875.  J. T. Fowler, Ripon Ch. Accts. (Surtees), Index. Fabric fund of Ripon.

  6.  Kind or method of construction or formation. † a. of things in general, buildings, instruments, etc. Also style (of architecture). Obs.

1644.  Evelyn, Mem. (1857) I. 82. The fabric of the Church is Gothic.

1662.  Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., III. i. § 16. The peculiar and admirable fabrick of the eyes.

1665.  Phil. Trans., I. 313. If any person who would make these Experiments, do not know the fabrick or use of any of the Instruments requisite for some of these Observations, nor where to find them, he may address himself to Mr. Shortgrave.

a. 1682.  Sir T. Browne, Tracts (1684), i. 6. Geometrical and Architectonical Artists look narrowly upon the description of the Ark, the fabrick of the Temple, and the holy City in the Apocalypse.

1690.  Locke, Hum. Und., IV. iii. § 24. What are the particular Fabricks of the great Masses of Matter, which make up the whole stupendious frame of Corporeal Beings.

1703.  Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1721), Add. 4. The Boats are of a miserable Fabrick.

1748.  Anson’s Voy., II. vi. 190. It was of consequence to us to be well informed of the fabrick and strength of this fort.

1774.  J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, II. 227–8. Thus it is said of Deucalion, Perseus and Dionusus, that they were exposed upon the waters in a machine of this fabrick.

  b.  of manufactured materials. Chiefly of textile articles: Texture. † Also concr. a particular ‘make’ or class (of goods).

1758.  J. Blake, Plan Mar. Syst., 8. Let a particular fabric of paper be made.

1764.  Harmer, Observ., XVII. ii. 77. We may naturally conjecture, that the tents of the Patriarchs, and those Israel might use in Ægypt, as well as in the wilderness, were of the same fabric.

1879.  H. Calderwood, Mind & Br., 55. One who is constantly at work amongst cloths of different fabric can tell, by a touch of his finger, what an inexperienced person could not do without careful inspection.

  c.  fig.

1752.  Hume, Ess. & Treat. (1777), I. 181. The fabric and constitution of our mind no more depends on our choice, than that of our body.

1753.  Smollett, Ct. Fathom (1784), 57/1. Fools of each fabrick, sharpers of all sorts, and dunces of every degree.

1779–81.  Johnson, L. P., Pope, Wks. IV. 106. He used almost always the same fabric of verse.

1871.  Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue, § 597. Compounds vary extremely as regards laxity or compactness of fabric.

  7.  concr. a. Of a textile article: The woven substance; tissue, fiber. Also fig.

1823.  J. Badcock, Dom. Amusem., 152. In following that example our bleachers destroyed the fabric of their goods.

1836.  J. Gilbert, Chr. Atonem., ix. (1852), 263. There are minds in whose fabric the ratiocinative faculty preponderates.

1842.  Bischoff, Woollen Manuf., II. 228. German wool is of that inferior description which enters into the fabric of low middling cloths.

1877.  E. R. Conder, The Basis of Faith, i. 3. History proves that the elements of Religion—faith in the Unseen and reverence for the Divine—are inwoven in the very fabric of our nature.

  b.  Occas. used for: Structural material.

1854.  Murchison, Siluria, iii. (ed. 5), 42. Lime wherewith to supply the fabric of the thicker shell of other mollusca.

1850.  Daubeny, Atom. Th., viii. (ed. 2), 245. The ligneous and cellular substance which forms the chief constituent of the vegetable fabric.

1866.  Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. xx. 503. The fabric of the mill appears to have been invariably timber, and the windmill was probably turned round to the wind by a pole annexed to an axle at the base and running on a small wheel.

  III.  8. A building erected for purposes of manufacture; a place where work is carried on; a factory, manufactory. rare.

1656–81.  Blount, Glossogr., Fabric, a shop or work-house wherein any thing is framed.

1753.  Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. II. xiv. 61. His fabric appeared as a little town, having about four hundred looms, which employs more than one thousand hands in making sail-cloth, sheetings, ravenducks and drillings.

1777.  W. Dalrymple, Trav. Sp. & Port., xxxi. The Marquis, who is also proprietor her, has established a fabrick of woollen cloth, but it is of no great consideration.

1807.  Southey, Espriella’s Lett. (1808), I. 33. There is a great fabric of carpets at Axminster, which are woven in one entire piece.

1844.  Fraser’s Mag., XXX. Oct., 431/1. The first fabric of liqueurs which had any extensive renown was that of Montpellier.