fabricate

From Latin fabricātus, perfect passive participle of fabricor, fabricō (“build, forge”), from fabrica (“a fabric, building, etc.”); see fabric and forge. Compare with French fabrique.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfæb.ɹɪ.keɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

fabricate (third-person singular simple present fabricates, present participle fabricating, simple past and past participle fabricated)

1. (transitive) To form into a whole by uniting its parts; to construct; to build.

   to fabricate a bridge or ship

   • 1908, Major W. E Frye, After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819‎^[1]:

     The bronze that formerly ornamented this temple was made use of to fabricate the baldachin of St Peter's.

2. (transitive) To form by art and labor; to manufacture; to produce.

   to fabricate computer chips

   • 2012 June, Stew Wilson, “Mass Effecting the Thousand Suns”, in RPG Review‎^[2], number 16, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 50:

     The omni-tool itself is a combination computer and general-purpose engineering device that fabricates tools and equipment as needed. It acts as a translator, computer, holographic recorder and player, full translation software, and can create lockpicks and any other equipment needed to use a character's skills. An omni-tool can be upgraded with a number of options.

   • 2016, Hou-Tong Chen, Antoinette J Taylor, Nanfang Yu, “A review of metasurfaces: physics and applications”, in arXiv‎^[3]:

     Planar metamaterials with subwavelength thickness, or metasurfaces, consisting of single-layer or few-layer stacks of planar structures, can be readily fabricated using lithography and nanoprinting methods, and the ultrathin thickness in the wave propagation direction can greatly suppress the undesirable losses.

3. (transitive) To invent and form; to forge; to devise falsely.

   to fabricate a lie or story

   • 2019 February 1, J. C. Garden, “Interrogating innocence: “Childhood” as exclusionary social practice”, in Childhood‎^[4], volume 26, number 1, page 55:

     Both sites, with their ad-laden interfaces emphasizing information about pregnancy, baby names, celebrity moms, and family fun, reflect pervasive concerns about the roles that adults, particularly women, play in creating the conditions of childhood. These concerns are illustrated by the desire of the aforementioned mom-bloggers to curate extraordinary adult memories for their children by fabricating a mythical period of wide-eyed wonder and magical moments.

4. (transitive, cooking) To cut up an animal as preparation for cooking, particularly used in reference to fowl.

• confabulate, cook up, invent, make up, manufacture, trump up

• “fabricate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “fabricate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

fabricāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of fabricō

fabricate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of fabricar combined with te