What does corduroying mean?
Corduroying is the practice of building a corduroy road — a track made passable by laying logs or split timbers side by side, perpendicular to the direction of travel, across mud, swamp, or soft ground. The resulting ribbed surface resembles the ridged texture of corduroy cloth, which is how both the fabric's use in this context and the term itself acquired their association. Historically, corduroying was essential work for settlers, armies, and loggers moving wagons, artillery, or timber through wet terrain where ordinary wheels would sink; it appears frequently in nineteenth-century North American travel narratives and military engineering manuals. Today the word is largely confined to historical, forestry, and outdoor-writing contexts, since modern road-building has replaced the technique almost everywhere. As a gerund it denotes the laborious process itself rather than the finished road, which is simply called a corduroy road or, occasionally, a corduroy.
The act or process of laying logs or timbers transversely across soft ground to form a passable road surface.
"The corduroying of the portage path made it usable even in spring thaw."
Chiefly historical and technical; used in pioneer, military, and logging contexts.
Present participle of 'corduroy': to build or cover (a road or surface) with transversely laid logs.
"They were corduroying the trail when the rain began."
Before asphalt and gravel, settlers literally made roads out of logs laid side by side — and the act of doing it was called corduroying, after a fabric named (probably) for the 'cloth of the king.'
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of corduroying
The verb 'corduroy,' from which 'corduroying' derives, comes from the noun 'corduroy,' first recorded in English in the late eighteenth century as the name of a heavy ribbed cotton fabric. The fabric's name is popularly explained as an anglicization of French 'corde du roi' ('cloth of the king'), though this etymology is debated among scholars. The transfer to road-building arose because a log-laid track's parallel ridges resemble the ribs of the cloth. Deeper roots lie in Latin 'chorda' and Greek 'khorde' ('string, gut'), the same source that gives us 'cord,' 'accord,' and 'concord.'
Related word forms
How corduroying is actually used
A technical and somewhat historical term, found mainly in accounts of pioneer travel, military engineering, logging, and wilderness road-building. In everyday modern English it is rare; speakers are more likely to say 'building a corduroy road' than to use the gerund.
Easily confused with corduroying
'Corduroy' is the ribbed cotton fabric or the finished log road itself, while 'corduroying' is the action of building such a log surface.