As we saw in the issue for "fabricate," the words "fabric" and "fabricate" trace back to a Latin word for "an artisan: someone who creates things out of materials;" and to fabricate things is to create them out of various materials or parts.

While "fabricate" dates back to 1598 in English, "prefabricate" is newer, dating to 1932, when society had figured out mass production. Here's the magazine Architecture in 1932: "We can prefabricate 90 per cent of a house in the factory, assemble it, and make it a permanent, attractive, useful home."

So in a literal sense, to prefabricate things is to create the parts and pieces for them ahead of time, making it faster and easier to assemble them into their final form. And in a figurative sense, to prefabricate things is to create them in a boring, overused, unoriginal way.

So, if you call something prefabricated, you might mean that it's assembled from parts that were created ahead of time, or that it's boring and unoriginal, as if it was assembled from standard, ready-to-use parts.

Part of speech:

Adjective: "I hate how some politicians give prefabricated answers."

Other forms: 

The verb is "prefabricate," and its other forms are "prefabricated" and "prefabricating." 

The noun for the process or quality is "prefabrication." It's mostly used literally, as in "When it comes to building houses, prefabrication saves a lot of time and money." But it also gets a bit of figurative use; for example, a writer in 1960 complained about "prefabrication of sports heroes" in the press.

If you prefer, you can shorten and slangify "prefabricated" into "prefab." Many writers do.

how to use it:

When you want to complain about how unoriginal something is, how it seems built from overused pieces, and how it ought to have been created in a heartfelt and authentic way but wasn't—but you don't want to call it "tropey" or "stereotypical"—a good choice may be "prefabricated."

It's formal, semi-common, and easy to understand.

You might talk about prefabricated phrases, comments, responses, stories, plots, scripts, movies, songs, albums, or performances.

examples:

"For all their special effects and endless brawling, Marvel movies are as character-driven as any Bond movie and they need charismatic performers and appealing personalities to hold their many prefabricated moving parts together."
  — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 4 November 2021

"Hip-hop is the one realm in which the use of songwriters is still, by and large, considered sacrilege. For many hip-hop fans, Drake's reputation was forever tarnished after it was alleged, in 2015, that some of his lyrics had come from a songwriter. For a rapper to appear on a TV show and accept prefabricated verses would be tantamount to a rhetorically gifted politician inviting his speechwriters onstage at a convention."
  — Carrie Battan, The New Yorker, 11 June 2019

has this page helped you understand "prefabricated"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "prefabricated" without saying "ready-made" or "off-the-rack."

try it out:

In the Guardian, Charlotte Higgins noted that "The [British] royal family presents itself as a kind of prefabricated national fiction... a make-believe of monarchy."

Could you explain what she means? Or, could you give an example of some other famous family, couple, or individual who seems to present themselves as prefabricated fiction?

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Recapitate the Headlines."

I'll give you some real but decapitated headlines, along with a selection of heads, and you try to reassemble them as they were originally published. (Or, feel free to play in "wrong answers only" mode, assembling the headlines in whatever way you find funniest.) You can check out some examples here.

Try these today:

    __________ and suffers psychosis
    __________ as schoolchildren cheer
    __________ in rubber duck test

    After using ChatGPT, man swaps his salt for sodium bromide
    Escaped pig dodges police
    Underwater glue shows its sticking power

To see the correct versions, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. The exact opposite of PREFABRICATED is UNPREFABRICATED, but a pretty close opposite of PREFABRICATED is

A. IRREVOCABLE (permanent, unable to be undone).
B. BESPOKE (made with great care, quality, and uniqueness).
C. RECIPROCATED (returned in kind, or responded to in the same way).

2. Richard Brody called Star Wars: The Force Awakens a "prefabricated" movie, one where the director _____.

A. "[channeled] the spirit of Steven Spielberg"
B. plugged "ready-made" content into a template
C. brought a sense of "palpable wonder" to the story

Answers to the review questions: 1. B 2. B From the game: After using ChatGPT, man swaps his salt for sodium bromide and suffers psychosis Escaped pig dodges police as schoolchildren cheer Underwater glue shows its sticking power in rubber duck test

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.