Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Corporation
Corˊpo-ra′tion
(kôrˊpō̍-rā′shŭn)
, Noun.
[L.
corporatio
incarnation: cf. F. corporation
corporation.] A body politic or corporate, formed and authorized by law to act as a single person, and endowed by law with the capacity of succession; a society having the capacity of transacting business as an individual.
☞ Corporations are aggregate or sole.
Corporations aggregate
consist of two or more persons united in a society, which is preserved by a succession of members, either forever or till the corporation is dissolved by the power that formed it, by the death of all its members, by surrender of its charter or franchises, or by forfeiture. Such corporations are the mayor and aldermen of cities, the head and fellows of a college, the dean and chapter of a cathedral church, the stockholders of a bank or insurance company, etc. A corporation sole
consists of a single person, who is made a body corporate and politic, in order to give him some legal capacities, and especially that of succession, which as a natural person he can not have. Kings, bishops, deans, parsons, and vicars, are in England sole corporations. A fee will not pass to a corporation sole without the word “successors” in the grant. There are instances in the United States of a minister of a parish seized of parsonage lands in the right of his parish, being a corporation sole, as in Massachusetts. Corporations are sometimes classified as public and private; public being convertible with municipal, and private corporations
being all corporations not municipal. Close corporation
. See under
Close
.Webster 1828 Edition
Corporation
CORPORATION
,Noun.
Definition 2024
corporation
corporation
English
Noun
corporation (plural corporations)
- A group of individuals, 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. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- 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.
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- (Britain) The municipal governing body of a borough or city [since 1974 obsolete except in the City of London]
- In Fascist Italy, a joint association of employers' and workers' representatives.
- (slang) A protruding belly; a paunch.
- 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 2007, p. 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.
- 1918, Katherine Mansfield, ‘Prelude’, Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, page 91:
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
company
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Italian association
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External links
- corporation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- corporation in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911