The Collaborative International Dictionary
Corduroy \Cor"du*roy`\ (k[^o]r"d[-u]*roi` or k[^o]r`d[-u]*roi"), n. [Prob. for F. corde du roi king's cord.]
A sort of cotton velveteen, having the surface raised in ridges.
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pl. Trousers or breeches of corduroy.
Corduroy road, a roadway formed of logs laid side by side across it, as in marshy places; -- so called from its rough or ribbed surface, resembling corduroy. [U.S.]
Wiktionary
n. A road paved with split or round log laid crosswise side by side, used e.g. to cross swampy areas.
Wikipedia
A corduroy road or log road is a type of road made by placing sand-covered logs, sometimes known as "punchings," perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area. The result is an improvement over impassable mud or dirt roads, yet rough in the best of conditions and a hazard to horses due to shifting loose logs.
Corduroy roads can also be built as a foundation for other surfacing. If the punchings are buried in wet, acidic, anaerobic soils such as peat or muskeg, they decay very slowly. A few corduroy road foundations that date back to the early 20th century still exist in the United States. One example is the Alaska Highway between Burwash Landing and Koidern, Yukon, which was rebuilt in 1943, less than a year after the original route was graded on thin soil and vegetation over permafrost, by using corduroy, then building gravel road on top. During the 1980s, the gravel was covered with a chip-seal. The late 1990s saw replacement of this road with modern road construction, including rerouting of the entire highway.
In a slang application, corduroy road can also apply to a road in ill repair, having many potholes, ruts, or surface swellings. This should not be confused with a washboard road.
Usage examples of "corduroy road".
Grant followed in an ambulance, which kept to a corduroy road that had been set across a sea of red Virginia mud and swampland.
A trip down the vangi corduroy road was a bone-rattling gauntlet, and more than one of the expected market carts would not survive it unscathed.
The only way Florian knew that they had arrived was that the corduroy road here became a broad, well-cobbled avenue through a village some ten times the size of Prival and composed of buildings much grander than Prival's izbas.
When they finished, a third group had taken the split logs by the side of the grading and laid them down to form a corduroy road.
The potter, depressed, wandered back up the corduroy road and contemplated his cooling kilns.
The buyer grunted peevishly, dropped Whambozambo Comix on the floor and led the way out of the building and down the log corduroy road to the highway.
Urging on their panting ruminants, they galloped down the winding corduroy road that led to the dwellings of Orlon.
Another gang was laying a corduroy road up to the power-house -- a matter of nearly two hundred yards -- and they were up to their knees in an ocean of mud.
Riding the train with the rails in their present sadly decrepit state is hardly more enjoyable than driving a light buggy headlong down a corduroy road.
A corduroy road had been laid down from the bluff to the water's edge, and the last of the marching column's equipment was being trundled up and loaded onto the waiting mules.
There were strips of corduroy road across marshes, made by laying logs crosswise and covering them with brush and mud.
A corduroy road made from logs laid side by side, logs slippery with mud and slush, with rotting vegetation from the swamp.
Nine miles is not a long distance on a map, but it can be a life-scarring experience when it's walked by children carrying a canoe, particularly when much of the way is a corduroy road of old rotting logs through mosquito-filled swamps.
They grabbed Ye-tai corpses and dumped them on the floor, forming a corduroy road of dead flesh.