student asking question

What does very fabric mean here? Is it a some kind of metaphor?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

While we might normally use the noun "fabric" to mean a type of cloth material, it can actually be used in a different way to metaphorically mean the essential structure or framework of something. Thus, you may commonly find it being used to refer to the essential structure of a society or culture. In this video, the speaker has used "very fabric of a store" to mean the "essential structure of a store itself." Ex: Social sciences study the fabric of society. Ex: Society is made up of a thick, complex fabric, and people are its individual threads.

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