FromMiddle Englishcorporacion,corporation, fromLate Latincorporatio(“assumption of a body”), fromLatincorporatus, past participle ofcorporare(“to form into a body”); seecorporate.
(protruding belly): Perhaps a play on the wordcorpulence.
corporation (pluralcorporations)
- Abody 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, inThe 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 andcorporation 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.
- Themunicipal governing body of aborough orcity.
- (historical) InFascistItaly, a jointassociation ofemployers' andworkers'representatives.
- (slang, dated, humorous) Aprotrudingbelly.
- Synonym:paunch
1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym;Charlotte Brontë], “Whitsuntide”, inShirley. A Tale. […], volume II, London:Smith, Elder and Co., […],→OCLC,pages127–128:[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 amplecorporation, 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 acorporation.'
1974,GB Edwards,The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published2007, page316:He was a big chap with acorporation already, and a flat face rather like Dora's, and he had a thin black moustache.
2001,Jamie O’Neill,At Swim, Two Boys[1], 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 hiscorporation with as much as his body and limbs would allow.
body corporate with legal personality
governing body of the City of London
slang, dated, humorous: protruding belly
- “corporation”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney,Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “corporation”, inThe Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.:The Century Co.,→OCLC.
corporation f (pluralcorporations)
- corporation
- guild
