fabric

英文词源

fabric

fabric: [15] Latin faber was a term for an artisan who worked with hard materials – a carpenter, for example, or a smith (it probably came from a prehistoric Indo-European base meaning ‘fit things together’). From it was derived fabrica, which denoted the trade such a man followed, the place where he worked, or in general terms the product of his work – in the case of a carpenter, a ‘building’.

And ‘building’ was the original sense of the word in English when it acquired it via French fabrique: ‘He had neuer studye in newe fabrykes ne buyldynges’, William Caxton, Golden Legend 1483. Remnants of the usage survive in the current sense ‘walls, roof, and floor of a building’. It was not until the mid 18th century that the underlying notion of ‘manufactured material’ gave rise to the word’s main present-day meaning ‘textile’.

Derivatives include fabricate [18], from Latin fabricāre, and forge.
=> forge

fabric (n.)

late 15c., "building; thing made; a structure of any kind," from Middle French fabrique (14c.), verbal noun from fabriquer (13c.), from Latin fabricare "to make, construct, fashion, build," from fabrica "workshop," also "an art, trade; a skillful production, structure, fabric," from faber "artisan who works in hard materials," from Proto-Italic *fafro-, from PIE *dhabh- "to fit together" (cognates: Armenian darbin "smith;" also see daft).

The noun fabrica suggests the earlier existence of a feminine noun to which an adj. *fabriko- referred; maybe ars "art, craft." [de Vaan]

Sense in English evolved via "manufactured material" (1753) to "textile, woven or felted cloth" (1791). Compare forge (n.)) which is a doublet.