corporation
Pluralcorporations
- 1A legally created body that exists independently of its members, with powers and liabilities separate from theirs.
Like a ship that remains the same vessel even as its entire crew is replaced over the years.
A corporation continues to exist even after all its original shareholders have sold their shares.
Creditors of the corporation cannot pursue the personal assets of its individual members.
UsageEasily confused with cooperation, which means working together.
Similarcompany, firm, business, enterprise
Note
Latin gave this sense its logic: corporare meant "to form into a body," and Late Latin corporatio was "the assumption of a body." The law makes that idea literal. Many members are formed into one legal person that outlives them and carries powers and liabilities of its own. Lawyers call it a body corporate, with the adjective placed after the noun.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Latin corporare meant to form into a body. en.wiktionary.org
- Late Latin corporatio meant the assumption or taking on of a body. en.wiktionary.org
- The law unites members into one legal person with continuing succession. en.wikipedia.org
- A corporation has an independent existence and powers and liabilities of its own. legacy.sba.gov
- Body corporate is a legal term for a corporation, with corporate functioning as an adjective after body. en.wiktionary.org
- 2The body that governs a borough or city as a unit of local government.
The corporation approved funding for new public housing across the city.
Members of the corporation met to debate the borough's annual budget.
Similarcouncil, municipality
- 3A noticeably protruding belly, especially a large or well-fed paunch.
He was a big chap with a corporation already, and a flat face rather like Dora's, and he had a thin black moustache.
1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page'You'd be surprised,' said Stanley, as though this were intensely interesting, 'at the number of chaps at the club who have got a corporation.'
1918, Katherine Mansfield, ‘Prelude’UsageOften after have or with: a man with a corporation, chaps who have got a corporation, sometimes with a size word: an ample corporation.
Similarpaunch
Note
The belly sense is a joke, perhaps a play on corpulence. Charlotte Brontë gives a rector "the dignity of an ample corporation" in Shirley (1849), and Jamie O'Neill still uses it in At Swim, Two Boys (2001).
Less common meaning
- 4In Fascist Italy, a joint association of employers' and workers' representatives within a single industry.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English corporacion, from Late Latin corporatio ("assumption of a body"), ultimately from Latin corporare ("to form into a body"). The sense of a protruding belly is perhaps a play on the word corpulence.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Corporation derives from Middle English corporacion. en.wiktionary.org
- The Middle English word derives from Late Latin corporatio, meaning assumption of a body. en.wiktionary.org
- The word ultimately derives from Latin corporare, meaning to form into a body. en.wiktionary.org
- The protruding-belly sense may be a play on corpulence. en.wiktionary.org