corporation

From Middle English corporacion, corporation, from Late Latin corporatio (“assumption of a body”), from Latin corporatus, past participle of corporare (“to form into a body”); see corporate.

(protruding belly): Perhaps a play on the word corpulence.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔːpəˈɹeɪʃən/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌkɔɹpəˈɹeɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

corporation (plural corporations)

1. A body corporate, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.

2. The municipal governing body of a borough or city.
3. (historical) In Fascist Italy, a joint association of employers' and workers' representatives.
4. (slang, dated, humorous) A protruding belly.

   Synonym: paunch

   • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 5, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:

     [The Rector], looming large in full canonicals, walking, as became a beneficed priest, under the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the dignity of an ample corporation, the embellishment of the squarest and vastest of black coats, and the support of the stoutest of gold-headed canes.

   • 1918, Katherine Mansfield, ‘Prelude’, Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, page 91:

     '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.'

   • 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 316:

     He was a big chap with a corporation already, and a flat face rather like Dora's, and he had a thin black moustache.

   • 2001, Jamie O’Neill, At Swim, Two Boys‎, London: Scribner, Part 2, Chapter 20, p. 620:

     The sergeant was a goner. There was only one way to save him, and he threw himself on top, hurling the man to the ground. He lay covering his corporation with as much as his body and limbs would allow.

• (body corporate): public limited company (UK)

• corporate
• incorporate

• “corporation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “corporation”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

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corporation f (plural corporations)

1. corporation
2. guild

• “corporation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.