Corridor

How to spell corridor

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce corridor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does corridor mean?

1. nounA long passage inside a building, with doors leading off it into rooms.

Corridor in a sentence

• The patient was wheeled down the hospital corridor to the operating theatre.

• Their office is at the far end of the corridor on the third floor.

Where does corridor come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin verb currere, meaning 'to run', the same root that gives us 'current', 'courier' and 'course'. From it Italian formed corridore, which described both a runner and the act or place of running, and by extension a long gallery or passage one could hurry along. The term passed into French as corridor and was originally a military word for a strip of ground or a covered passage along fortifications down which soldiers could move quickly. English adopted it in the late 1500s, at first in that fortification sense, before it settled into the familiar modern meaning of a long passage inside a building with rooms opening off it. The 'run' idea behind currere explains the double r at the start, and the unusual ending is -dor rather than -der, which is precisely where careful spellers slip.

How the word is built

• corr- (from Latin currere: to run)
• -idor (place/agent suffix via Italian and French)