corduroy

Meanings

Noun

• A heavy fabric, usually made of cotton, with vertical ribs.
• Cheap and poor-quality whiskey.
• A pattern on snow resulting from the use of a snow groomer to pack snow and improve skiing, snowboarding and snowmobile trail conditions. Corduroy is widely regarded as a good surface on which to ski or ride.

Verb

• To make (a road) by laying down split logs or tree-trunks over a marsh, swamp etc.

Origin

• Origin uncertain. Probably from cord + duroy. Probably not from French *corde du roi, which is unattested in French, where the term for the "cloth of the king" was velours côtelé. Possibly from cordesoy, or "rope of silk or silk-like fabric" in French), named for example in a 1756 advertisement for clothing fabrics; see Wikipedia article, and comparable in language form to the contemporary [[sergedusoy, see Serge (fabric).