Definition of "corduroy" [cor•du•roy]

• A durable cut-pile fabric, usually made of cotton, with vertical ribs. (noun)
• Trousers made of corduroy. (noun)
• A road made of logs laid down crosswise. (noun)
• Made of a fabric with vertical ribs. (adjective)
• Made of logs laid down crosswise: a corduroy road. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Corduroy's origins date back to the late 1700s England, not France as is widely believed, says James Pruden, a spokesman for Cotton Inc., a research and promotion nonprofit headquartered in Cary, N.C. The term corduroy is most likely a combination of the words "cord" and the now obsolete "duroy" or "deroy," meaning a woolen garment, he says."
• "Where House Republican leader John Boehner belongs to a golf club that cost 75K to join, wears thousand dollar suits, and travels on corporate jets, he campaigns in corduroy shirts."
• "The man in corduroy and dirty neckerchief no longer addressed me as"