Corduroy (pronounced kawr-duh-roi)
(1) A cotton-filling pile fabric with lengthwise cords or
ridges.
(2) In the plural as corduroys (or cords), trousers made from
this fabric.
(3) Of, relating to, or resembling corduroy.
(4) A method of building an improvised road or causeway, constructed
with logs laid together transversely (used by military forces, those operating
in swampy ground areas etc); the result was described originally as “ribbed
velvet” and when intended for sustained use, earth was thrown into the gaps and
compacted, thus rendering a relatively smooth, stable surface.
(5) To form such a “road” by arranging logs transversely.
(6) In ski-run maintenance, a pattern on snow resulting
from the use of a snow groomer to pack snow and improve skiing, snowboarding
and snowmobile trail conditions (corduroy thought a good surface for skiing).
(7) In Irish slang, cheap, poor-quality whiskey (based on
the idea on the fabric corduroy not being “smooth”.
1776: Of uncertain origin. There’s no consensus among etymologists but
the most support seems to be for the construct being cord + duroy (one of a number of lightweight,
worsted fabrics once widely produced and known collectively as “West of England
Cloth”). Cord (A long, thin, flexible
length of twisted yarns (strands) of fiber) was from the late thirteenth
century Middle English corde (a
string or small rope composed of several strands twisted or woven together;
bowstring, hangman's rope), from the Old French corde (rope, string, twist, cord), from the Latin chorda (string of a musical instrument,
cat-gut), from the Doric Ancient Greek χορδά (khordá) (string of gut, the string of a lyre) and may be compared
with the Ionic χορδή (khordḗ), from the primitive Indo-European
ghere- (bowel; intestine). The adjective cordless (of electrical devices or
appliances working without a cord (ie powered by a battery) dates from 1905 and
was augmented later by “wireless” which described radios so configured. Cordless is still a useful word now that the
meaning of “wireless” in the context of computing has become dominant. The curious use of cord as “a unit of
measurement for firewood, equal to 128 cubic feet (4 × 4 × 8 feet), composed of
logs and/or split logs four feet long and none over eight inches diameter (and usually
seen as a stack 4 feet high by 8 feet long)” dates from the 1610s and was
so-called because it was measured with a cord of rope marked with the
appropriate measures.
Lindsay Lohan as fashion influencer: In burnt red corduroy pants & nude platform pumps, Los Angeles, December 2011 (left) and leaving Phillippe Restaurant after dinner with Woody Allen (b 1935), New York, May 2012 (right). It's said that before he met Lindsay Lohan, the film director had never worn corduroy trousers and he still prefers brown, seemingly unable to escape the 1970s when he was perhaps at his happiest.
Until well into the twentieth century, the old folk
etymology was still being published which held the word was from the French corde du roi (cloth of the king”), which
seems never to have be used in France, the correct term for “cloth of the king”
being velours côtelé. It’s not impossible
there’s some link with cordesoy, from
the French corde de soie (“rope of
silk” or “silk-like fabric”) because that form is documented in an advertisement
for clothing fabrics dating from 1756. The
spelling corderoy appears in commercial use in 1772 but the modern “corduroy”
became the standard form in the 1780s. The
origin of duroy is obscure and the earliest known use (in print) of the word appeared
in the early seventeenth century; it may be from the French du roi (of the king), a 1790 trade
publication in France including the term duroi
(a woolen fabric similar to tammy).
So, although the case for cord + duroy seems compelling, etymologists note (1) duroy was fashioned from wool while corduroy was made
with cotton and there’s no other history of the two words being associated, (2)
grammatically, the compound should have been duroy-cord and (3) this does not
account for the earlier corderoy.
None of that of course means cord + duroy was not the source and many English words have
been formed in murky ways. There’s also
the possibility of some link with the English
surname Corderoy (although there is no evidence of a connection); the name was
also spelt Corderey & Cordurey, the origin lying in the nickname for “a
proud person” (of French origin, it meant “king’s heart”). Some are more convinced by a suggestion made
in 1910 by the English philologist Ernest Weekley (1865-1954) who speculated corduroy
began life as folk-etymology for the trade-term common in the sixteenth
century: colour de roy, from the French couleur de roi (king’s
colour) which originally was a reference to both a cloth in the rich purple associated
with the French kings and the color itself. Later, it came to signify a bright
tawny colour and a cloth of this hue. Corduroy
as an adjective came into use after 1789 and the use to describe roads or
causeways improvised by means of with logs laid together transversely (usually
to provide wheeled vehicles passage over swampy ground dates from the 1780s. Corduroy is a noun, verb & adjective, corduroying
& corduroyed are verbs and corduroylike is an adjective; the noun plural is
corduroys.
1975 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 trimmed in classic 1970s brown corduroy.
By the 1960s most Mercedes-Benz were being trimmed in their famously durable MB-Tex, a robust vinyl which was not only easy to maintain but closely resembled leather, lacking only the aroma (and third-party manufacturers soon made available aerosols for those who found the olfactory appeal too much to forgo). However, leather and velour (of mohair in the most exclusive lines) were either standard or optional on more expensive models and when exported to first-world markets beyond Europe (such as North America or Australia), MB-Tex or leather was standard and the fabrics were available only by special order. A notable exception was the Japanese market where buyers disliked the way their prized “car doilies” slid of the hide; they always preferred cloth. The velour was certainly better suited to harsh northern European winters and testers would often comment on how invitingly comfortable were the seats trimmed in the fabric. To add to the durability, the surfaces subject to the highest wear (ie those at the edges on which there was the most lateral movement during ingress and egress) used a corduroy finish (the centre panels also trimmed thus, just for symmetry).
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