Velvet is a fabric with a short, soft pile spread evenly across the whole surface, giving it a smooth, plush feel. Corduroy also has a pile, but it is arranged in raised, ridged lines, which is why you can see (and feel) its ribs running down the cloth.
The core difference
Velvet has an all-over soft pile, while corduroy has that pile gathered into distinct ridged lines.
- velvet — a closely woven fabric with a thick, short, soft pile all over one side: she wore a deep red velvet dress to the gala.
- corduroy — a heavy, ribbed cotton fabric with fine raised, parallel lines running down it: he wore a pair of brown corduroy trousers to the interview.
How to tell them apart
Run a finger across the fabric: an even, smooth softness in every direction is velvet, while distinct ridges you can count is corduroy. Velvet was traditionally woven from silk, though most modern velvet is cotton or synthetic; corduroy has always been a cotton fabric.
Outside clothing, both words stretch to other uses. Velvet describes the soft, fuzzy covering on growing deer antlers, and corduroy describes the ribbed pattern a grooming machine leaves in snow, useful context if either word turns up somewhere unexpected.
