warp and woof

warp and woof

The integral, fundamental aspects, elements, or constructs of something. Personal independence has been the warp and woof of our nation's identity since its inception. The examples set by our parents form the warp and woof of our lives.
See also: and, warp, woof
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

warp and woof

The underlying structure or foundation of something, as in He foresaw great changes in the warp and woof of the nation's economy. This expression, used figuratively since the second half of the 1500s, alludes to the threads that run lengthwise ( warp) and crosswise ( woof) in a woven fabric.
See also: and, warp, woof
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • the meat and potatoes
  • get down to the nuts and bolts
  • nuts and bolts
  • nuts and bolts, the
  • the nuts and bolts
  • the nuts and bolts of something
  • buy someone’s woof ticket
  • see through rose-colored glasses
  • see (something) through rose-colored glasses
  • see (something) through rose-coloured spectacles
References in periodicals archive
At first, Bruster's epigraph seems, if not outside the warp and woof, at least un-eventual, while his critique of Greenblatt and the New Historicism--for concerted failure to make good on a fundamentally intertextual project (31)--seems at best belated.
They take their character from the warp and woof of membership in a family, a community, a school, a common life.
Clotheshorse can wear anything, bolts of cloth draping off my every limb, purples, rabid reds, funereal blacks, running my hands through reams of charmeuse on racks, woven scarves, the grain of warp and woof. Clothes my trademark, all strange, one day black-widowed, next a trail of rhinestones on my boots, carnival taste, tacky, gaudy.
Regulation D comprises five rules which are the warp and woof of the regulatory fabric of private offerings: Rule 501 sets forth definitions of terms used in the Regulation, most notably that of accredited investor, which for our purposes means individuals with a $1 million net worth (home and car included), or with consistent minimum annual income of $200,000.
"We must not compound this gigantic moral and ethical lapse by weaving this slaughter into the warp and woof of modern medical management."
* The fabric of Christianity has been roughly woven, warp and woof, from the get-go.
The exhibition's primary formal device was a series of variations on the grid with its echo of the warp and woof of weaving and its concomitant association with the feminine and the premodern.
The warp and woof, the tapestry that signifies the life of this small community contains signs of contemporary life--the occasional car and TV set--as well as threads and patterns that have endured over the centuries.
Concerns for the environment, workers, local communities, and the rest could become warp and woof of the charter--the basic contract with the community--so that CEOs would not be dragged constantly down to the lowest common denominator.
Flattening and deranging a plot that most of us find utterly predictable, even reassuring (chaos erupts and people in uniforms show up to restore order), Refraction exposes something more disturbing than chaos running through the warp and woof of the social fabric--that is, order itself, ossified, emptied of meaning, and transformed into a series of ritual gestures.