Well, i vaguely knew fabric meant more than cloth.
the old meaning of build up a structure is seen in the idiom 'a fabric of lies', or the fabrication.. the whole of Enron business plan was a fabrication..
Forge is a close cousin of a word from the same root---*dhabh meaning to fit together.. the current word came to english from the french in about 1483, (fabrique) meaning building. but the latin faber, was a term for an artisan who worked with hard materials, ie, a carpenter or smith.
so a carpenter, a kind of faber, fabricated buildings.. and in the 18th C., the sense of manufactured materials, gave rise to textiles, which were being made in fabricated buildings not at home, but in building specially fabricated for the manufacture of cloth!
the smith side of fabrication lead to the word forge-- meaning to make! and a forger is someone who makes something up, like iron works, or like lies, or fake money! interesting how both sides of the word have a meaning of lies/dishonesty isn't it?
