corduroy

plural corduroys

1. countableuncountableA heavy fabric, usually made of cotton, with vertical ribs.

   We turned to see a muscular young man lounging in the door which led into the sitting-room. He wore green corduroy trousers, a duffle coat and an old school tie.

   1956, Delano Ames, chapter 4, in Crime out of Mind

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   Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.[…]A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

2. IrelandcountableobsoleteslanguncountableCheap and poor-quality whiskey.

   Another description of what would be termed adulterated spirits, is by the vulgar termed "Corduroy," on account of the rough feeling which it imparts to the tongue and palate.

   [1834 June 16, John Edgar, “Minutes of Evidence, Monday, the Sixteenth Day of June, 1834”, in Evidence on Drunkenness, London: British and Foreign Temperance Society, published 1834, page 93

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   To men of common gumption, / Hot strange, besides, must seem / At this time any scheme / To put a check upon potheen's consumption, / When all are calling for Irish Poor Laws! / Instead of framing more laws, / To pauperism if you'd give a pegger, / Don't check, but patronise their "Kill-the-Beggar!" / If Pat is apt to go in Irish Linen, / (Buttoning his coat, with nothing but his skin in) / Would any Christian man -- that's quite himself, / His wits not floor'd, or laid upon the shelf --, While blaming Pat for raggedness, poor boy, / Would deprive him of his "Corduroy!"

   1835, Thomas Hood, “Ode to J. S. Buckingham, Esq. M.P.”, in The Comic Annual, pages 135–136

   Synonyms: kill-the-beggar

3. countableuncountableA 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.

1. not comparableOf a road, path, etc., paved with split or round logs laid crosswise side by side.

   Swamps had to be crossed by means of corduroy causeways; made by cutting down trees and laying them horizontally on the quivering mass of boggy ground.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 146

present singular third person corduroys · participle present corduroying · participle past corduroyed · past corduroyed

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

   The night was very dark and it rained heavily, the roads were so bad that the troops had to cut trees and corduroy the road a part of the way, to get through.

   1886, Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, chapter 53

   1 more example

   But Sherman organized “pioneer battalions” of soldiers and freedmen […] to cut saplings and trees to corduroy the roads, build bridges, and construct causeways.

   1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2004, pages 827–8