corduroy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a durable cotton fabric with raised parallel ribs running along its surface

   He wore a brown corduroy jacket through most of the winter.

2. 2
   noun

   corduroy trousers; used chiefly in the plural corduroys

   She paired her old corduroys with a wool sweater.

3. 3
   noun

   a road or track made by laying logs crosswise over soft or marshy ground

   The wagons crossed the swamp on a rough corduroy road.

4. 4
   verb

   to make a road across soft ground by laying logs side by side

   The workers corduroyed the muddy approach so supply carts could pass.

Origin uncertain, probably from cord, referring to the fabric's ribs, plus duroy, the name of a coarse English woolen fabric. The often-repeated derivation from French corde du roi, 'the king's cloth,' is unsupported; French calls the material velours côtelé. The log-road sense arose from the parallel ridges resembling the cloth.

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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