fabrication

American  

[fab-ri-key-shuhn] / ˌfæb rɪˈkeɪ ʃən /

noun

• fabrications
  plural

1. the act or process of fabricating; manufacture.

2. something fabricated, especially an untruthful statement.

   His account of the robbery is a complete fabrication.

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Synonym Usage

See fiction.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• fabrications
  plural

Etymology

Origin of fabrication

First recorded in 1475–1500; from Latin fabricātiōn- (stem of fabricātiō ). See fabricate, -ion

Explanation

A fabrication is something made up, like a lie. Telling your boss that the subway broke down when in fact you just forgot to set your alarm is a fabrication. The word fabrication was originally used to talk about manufacturing or construction, and it referred to the act of assembling something. Tires and steering wheels are necessary materials for automobile fabrication. Nowadays, the word fabrication is usually used to refer to the act of coming up with a story out of thin air. In this sense, a book of fiction is a fabrication, as is the lie you tell your girlfriend to explain why you forgot her birthday (again).

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fabrication fabrications

Although Cal/OSHA doesn’t have the authority to ban the sale of the product, the association argued that it ought to ban its production and fabrication in the state.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

Ardersier is a former oil and gas fabrication yard which at its peak employed about 4,500 people, before closing in 2001 as demand dropped.

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026

More work will still be needed before the fabrication process can be optimized for large-scale manufacturing.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026

Washington has spent the past decade working to secure choke points of the semiconductor industry: fabrication plants, lithography equipment, advanced packaging, critical minerals and the handful of companies that dominate each.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026

Mother’s fabrication is so elaborate I can hardly describe it.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

The ubiquity of such fabrications does not make it any less dangerous to a democratic society.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

I worked as a journalist at NBC News and CNN, and later as head of news at Meta, working with the team that built systems to distinguish credible news articles from fabrications.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026

Many social media users complained that the AI fabrications make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction on tech platforms, many of which have scaled back content moderation.

From Barron's ● May 18, 2026

The film business, in which he worked making fantasy art and other fabrications, was not a creative haven, but rather a soul-sucking void.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 9, 2026

All those half truths and outright fabrications, giving people what they wanted without stopping to think about what she really wanted.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

Related Words

• deceit
• falsehood
• fiction
• forgery
• myth
• untruth