Ref:Framework

From Dark Omen Wiki

A framework is a set of libraries and systems, usually using APIs and engines, enabling writing applications of a particular type. Frameworks occupy a fuzzy middle ground between more generically intended APIs and specifically intended engines.

• GameMaker is an example of a framework incorporating f.i. the SDL API for graphics and input and providing its own 2D tile engines, enabling the development of diverse but relatively simple and design-wise similar games.
  
  
• Depending on definition, DirectX can be considered a framework rather than an API in combining various hardware abstractions (2D, 3D, network, input, audio, multimedia) while providing automated management of specific formats (3D mesh LoD-tesselation etc).