Meaning & use
corrugate
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Meanings
verbtransitivetechnical
To press or bend a flat material, such as metal or cardboard, into a pattern of regular parallel ridges and grooves.
Grammar: Takes an object: corrugate the sheet metal. The adjective corrugated is much more common.
Patterns
- corrugate something
- corrugate something into ridges
The factory uses a heavy roller to corrugate the metal sheets.
Workers corrugate the cardboard to make the boxes stronger.
They corrugated the plastic panels before fitting them to the roof.
verbtransitive or intransitiveliterary
To become wrinkled or ridged, or to make the skin or a surface wrinkled in rows.
Grammar: Can take an object or have none: worry corrugated his forehead, the road corrugates.
Patterns
- something corrugates
- corrugate something
Worry began to corrugate his forehead as he read the letter.
Heavy trucks cause a dirt road to corrugate over the years.
Word forms
| third person singular | corrugates |
|---|---|
| past tense | corrugated |
| -ing form | corrugating |
Common combinations
- corrugate the sheet
- The machine will corrugate the sheet in a single pass.
- corrugate cardboard
- Factories corrugate cardboard to protect goods in transit.
- corrugate metal
- They corrugate metal to make it stiff enough for roofing.
- corrugated iron
- The shed had a roof of corrugated iron.
- corrugated cardboard
- The vase was wrapped in corrugated cardboard.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ridge
- Ridge as a verb is rarer and usually describes one raised line, while corrugate means a whole regular pattern of them.
- furrow
- Furrow describes digging or wrinkling in lines, especially a brow, and is less technical than corrugate.
- crimp
- Crimp means to press into small folds or waves, often hair or metal edges, and is on a smaller scale than corrugate.
- wrinkle
- Wrinkle is the everyday word and suggests irregular creases, whereas corrugate is regular and often deliberate.
Opposites
Word family
- corrugated adjective
- shaped into parallel ridges
- corrugation noun
- one of the ridges, or the act of forming ridges
- corrugator noun
- a machine or muscle that makes folds
- uncorrugated adjective
- flat and without ridges
Commonly confused: corrugate or corrupt?
corrugate vs corrupt
Corrupt means dishonest or spoiled and looks vaguely similar, but it has nothing to do with ridges.
Practice
Manufacturers ___ cardboard so that a thin sheet becomes strong enough to carry heavy loads.
Choose one answer.
To corrugate is to form ridges, which gives strength. Corrode means eat away at metal, correlate means link, and corrupt means make dishonest.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “corrugate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.