A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1133 entries
cordage
Cordage is rope and line considered collectively, both the material and the trade of making it. In a working context, it means everything aboard a boat or in a rigging loft that is not sail or spar. In archaeology, it means twisted plant fiber generally, and it is one of the oldest technologies there is. The impressions of twisted cord in fired clay are among the earliest evidence of textile work.
Etymology
The word came into English from French, built on corde, which goes back to Greek for a gut string. Rope was made from animal gut long before it was made from plant fiber, and the string of a musical instrument and the string of a bow were the same object. The Greek word is also why we have chord in music and cord in anatomy, as in the spinal cord and the vocal cords.
Notes
The standard hand-laid rope is built in stages that each reverse direction: fibers spun one way into yarn, yarn twisted the other way into strand, strands twisted back the first way into rope. The opposing twists are what keep it from unwinding, so the rope is held together by its own tension. A cord of firewood is a different word entirely by way of the same one, since it was originally the amount a length of cord would go around.