What is software framework ?

I'm very late to answer it. But, I would like to share one example which I only thought of today. If I told you to cut a piece of paper with dimensions 5m by 5m then surely you would do that. But then I ask you to cut 1000 pieces of paper of the same dimensions. Then you won't do the measuring 1000 times, obviously you would make a frame of 5m by 5m and then with the help of it you would be able to cut 1000 papers in less time. So, what you did is made a framework which would do that type of task. So, instead of performing the same type of task again and again for the same type of applications, what you do is create a framework having all those facilities together in one nice packet, hence providing the abstraction for your application and more importantly many applications