corporates

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of corporate.

   Several corporates sponsored the city marathon this year.

   Local startups often struggle to compete with established corporates.

   Note

   One plural covers several different things: bonds issued by companies, short in-house films made for training, franchising companies as opposed to their individual outlets, or simply large firms. Context decides which is meant. One use has no plural at all. When corporate informally names a firm's upper management (orders that come down from corporate), it is uncountable, so corporates never refers to the bosses.

2. 2
   verbobsolete

   Third-person singular simple present of corporate, an obsolete verb; the modern word is incorporates.

   Note

   The -s form of a verb that has dropped out of use. Corporate once meant "to incorporate" with an object, as in a charter that corporates a guild. Without an object, it meant "to become incorporated." Both uses are obsolete. Modern prose uses incorporates instead, so this form belongs to older texts. In current writing, the same spelling is much more likely to be the plural noun.

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