company
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkʌmp(ə)ni/
ipa: /ˈkɒmp(ə)ni/
ipa: /ˈkʌmpəni/
note: Indic
ipa: /kəmp(ə)ˈni/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈkɔmp(ə)ni/
note: spelling pronunciation
ipa: /kəmˈpeni/
rhymes: -ʌmpni
rhymes: -ʌmpəni
Forms: form: companies
form: companie
Etymology: From Middle English companye (“a team; companionship”), from Old French compaignie (“companionship”) (Modern French: compagnie), possibly from Late Latin *compania, but this word is not attested. Old French compaignie is equivalent to Old French compaignon (Modern French: compagnon) + -ie. More at companion.
Displaced native Old English werod, gefer, getæl, and hired.
Senses: examples: text: a company of actors
glosses: A team; a group of people who work together professionally.
A group of individuals who work together for a common purpose.
examples: text: the boys in Company C
text: It was by his order the shattered leading company flung itself into the houses when the Sin Verguenza were met by an enfilading volley as they reeled into the calle.
ref: 1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 30, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: A team; a group of people who work together professionally.
A unit of approximately sixty to one hundred and twenty soldiers, typically consisting of two or three platoons and forming part of a battalion.
examples: text: It took six companies to put out the fire.
glosses: A team; a group of people who work together professionally.
A unit of firefighters and their equipment.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A team; a group of people who work together professionally.
The entire crew of a ship.
examples: text: As he had worked for the CIA for over 30 years, he would soon take retirement from the company.
topics: espionage
government
military
politics
war
glosses: A team; a group of people who work together professionally.
An intelligence service.
examples: text: guys, we've got company (a common cliché in fiction)
topics: fiction
literature
media
publishing
glosses: A team; a group of people who work together professionally.
A group of adversaries or enemies; unwanted company.
glosses: A small group of birds or animals.
examples: text: a financial services company
text: “[…] That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh.[…]If she had her way, she’d ruin the company inside a year with her hare-brained schemes; love of the people, and that sort of guff.”
ref: 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad:
topics: law
synonyms: word: business
word: company
word: enterprise
word: firm
glosses: An entity having legal personality, and thus able to own property and to sue and be sued in its own name; a corporation.
examples: text: In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.
ref: 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19:
text: According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.
ref: 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 95:
text: The company added it has not “received any reports of adverse events,” but it’s moving forward with the recall out of “an abundance of caution.”
ref: 2021 November 26, Jackie Wattles, “Some Old Spice and Secret deodorants recalled after cancer-causing chemical is detected”, in CNN Business:
topics: business
glosses: Any business, whether incorporated or not, that manufactures or sells products (also known as goods), or provides services as a commercial venture.
examples: text: Keep the house clean; I have company coming.
text: Come, O thou Traveller unknown, / Whom still I hold, but cannot see! / My company before is gone, / And I am left alone with Thee; / With Thee all night I mean to stay, / And wrestle till the break of day.
ref: 1742, “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown”, Charles Wesley (music):
text: At length, one night, when the company by ſome accident broke up much ſooner than ordinary, ſo that the candles were not half burnt out, ſhe was not able to reſiſt the temptation, but reſolved to have them ſome way or other. Accordingly, as ſoon as the hurry was over, and the ſervants, as ſhe thought, all gone to ſleep, ſhe ſtole out of her bed, and went down ſtairs, naked to her ſhift as ſhe was, with a deſign to ſteal them […]
ref: 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, →OCLC, page 202:
text: The departure was not unduly prolonged. In the road Mr. Love and the driver favoured the company with a brief chanty running. “Got it?—No, I ain't, 'old on,—Got it? Got it?—No, 'old on sir.”
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
glosses: Social visitors or companions.
examples: text: I treasure your company.
text: He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 2:
glosses: Companionship.
Synonyms: sense: in legal context, a corporation
word: corporation
sense: group of individuals with a common purpose
word: association
sense: group of individuals with a common purpose
word: companionship
sense: group of individuals with a common purpose
word: fellowship
sense: group of individuals with a common purpose
word: organization
sense: group of individuals with a common purpose
word: society
sense: companionship
word: fellowship
sense: companionship
word: friendship
sense: companionship
word: mateship
Hyponyms: British East India Company
e-company
fast company
fire company
growth company
holding company
incorporated company
insurance company
investment company
joint-stock company
limited liability company
listed company
livery company
management company
mixed company
mutual company
offshore company
parent company
private company
quoted company
shell company
ship's company
sister company
stock company
title company
touring company
trust company
zombie company
Derived terms: word: a man is known by the company he keeps
word: and company
word: bad company
word: biocompany
word: blank check company
word: bubble company
word: community interest company
word: companization
word: company car
word: company clinic
word: company doctor
word: company front
word: company law
word: company man
word: company officer
word: company register
word: company seal
word: company sergeant major
word: company-specific
word: company store
word: company time
word: company town
word: company union
word: companywide
word: compliance company
word: daughter company
word: fish and company stink after three days
english: train operating company
translation: train operating company
word: freight operating company
word: ghost company
word: in-company
word: in company with
word: intercompany
word: intracompany
word: keep company
word: keep someone company
word: letterbox company
word: limited company
word: mailbox company
word: megacompany
word: merry company
word: misery enjoys company
word: misery loves company
word: multicompany
word: noncompany
word: oil company
word: part company
english: present company excluded
translation: present company excluded
word: present company excepted
word: private limited liability company
word: public limited company
word: public limited liability company
word: record company
english: front company
translation: front company
word: shell company
word: shipping company
word: subcompany
word: supercompany
word: telco
word: the company
english: road company
translation: road company
word: touring company
word: two's company and three is none
word: two's company, three's a crowd
word: umbrella company
word: unlimited company
word: we have company
word: who keeps company with the wolf will learn to howl
english: don't fish off the company dock, you don't dip your pen in the company inkwell, you don't fish off the company pier
translation: don't fish off the company dock, you don't dip your pen in the company inkwell, you don't fish off the company pier
word: you don't dip your pen in company ink
Related terms: accompany
companion
discompany