Corrugation is a pattern of regular folds, ridges, or waves in a material, like the ripples in corrugated cardboard or metal roofing.
It comes from Latin “corrugare,” meaning “to wrinkle” or “to bend into folds,” from “com-” (together) and “rugare” (to wrinkle). So it literally refers to making something wrinkly or ridged.
Those bumpy ridges in cardboard aren’t just for looks—they massively increase strength without adding much weight. That’s why corrugated materials are used for shipping boxes and roofs: the wrinkles make them tougher, just like folded paper is harder to bend.
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