Corporate

//ˈkɔː.pə.ɹət// adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A bond issued by a corporation. countable, uncountable

    "So-called junk corporates and emerging-market debt remain generally out of favor."

  2. 2
    A short film produced for internal use in a business, e.g. for training, rather than for a general audience. countable, uncountable

    "Currently there are 19 members, who are all in Spotlight and belong to Equity. Areas of work include theatre, musicals, television, film, commercials, corporates and voiceovers."

  3. 3
    A corporation that franchises, as opposed to an individual franchise. countable

    "McDonald's corporate issued a new policy today."

  4. 4
    A corporate company or group. countable
  5. 5
    The higher managerial echelons of a corporation. informal, uncountable

    "it came down from corporate"

Verb
  1. 1
    To incorporate. obsolete, transitive

    "This hospital of Savoy was again new founded, erected, corporated , and endowed with lands by Queen Mary"

  2. 2
    To become incorporated. intransitive, obsolete
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to a corporation.

    "The one on Seventh Street is a corporate franchise."

  2. 2
    Formed into a corporation; incorporated.
  3. 3
    Unified into one body; collective.

    "the corporate authorship of the working group"

  4. 4
    Soulless and inoffensive; sanitized and sterile, like a design from a large corporation. colloquial

    "It's not that their interior decorating is horrible; it's just that, well, it's so corporate."

Adjective
  1. 1
    possessing or existing in bodily form wordnet
  2. 2
    organized and maintained as a legal corporation wordnet
  3. 3
    done by or characteristic of individuals acting together wordnet
  4. 4
    of or belonging to a corporation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
incorporatedaffiliateaffiliatedalliedassociateassociated

Example

More examples

"Corporate bankruptcies continued at a high level last month."

Etymology

Etymology 1

The adjective is first attested in 1429, the noun in 1849; from Middle English corporat(e) (“(if a true adjective) corporeal, physical, embodied; (participle/participial adjective) incorporated; corporated, constituted as a legal corporation”, used as the past participle of corporaten), from Latin corporātus, perfect passive participle of corporō (“to make into a body”) (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from corpus (“body”, oblique stem in corp-) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). The noun was derived by substantivization from the adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).

Etymology 2

First attested in 1398; from Middle English corporaten (“to incorporate, assimilate; to constitute as a legal corporation”), either from corporat(e) (“(if a true adjective) corporeal, physical”, also used as the past participle of corporaten) + -en (verb-forming suffix) or directly from Latin corporātus + -en, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

Related phrases

body corporatecorporate anorexiacorporate censorshipcorporate citizencorporate death penaltycorporate executivecorporate financecorporate firewallcorporate imagecorporate income taxcorporate laddercorporate law

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.