Fabrication means making something up or inventing it, especially when you're pretending it's true. When someone tells a story about wrestling a bear at summer camp, but it never happened, that story is a fabrication. If a student claims their homework was eaten by their pet iguana when they actually forgot to do it, that excuse is a fabrication.

The word comes from the same root as “fabric,” which gives us a clue: fabrication involves weaving together details to construct something. But unlike making a quilt or building a treehouse, fabricating a story means creating fiction and presenting it as fact.

Fabrication is more deliberate than a simple mistake or exaggeration. Someone who fabricates evidence in a trial is inventing fake proof. A researcher who fabricates data is making up numbers instead of conducting real experiments. These are serious acts of dishonesty that destroy trust.

The word can also mean the process of building or manufacturing something, like the fabrication of steel beams for a bridge or the fabrication of computer chips in a factory. In this sense, it's about actual construction and carries no hint of dishonesty. But when people talk about fabrication in everyday conversation, they usually mean the dishonest kind: making things up and hoping no one will notice.