Generally, a company is a form of business organization. The precise definition varies.

In the United States, a company is a corporation—or, less commonly, an association, partnership, or union—that carries on an industrial enterprise."Black's Law and lee Dictionary. Second Pocket Edition. Bryan A. Garner, editor. West. 2001. Generally, a company may be a "corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, trust, fund, or organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, and (in an official capacity) any receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, or similar official, or liquidating agent, for any of the foregoing."

In English law, and therefore in the Commonwealth realms, a company is a form of body corporate or corporation, generally registered under the Companies Acts or similar legislation. It does not include a partnership or any other unincorporated group of persons.

Etymology

The word company is traced from a 1150 A.D.(CE) O.Fr. term compaignie or "body of soldiers" and from L.L. companio (companion). The word's meaning of "subdivision of an infantry regiment" is from 1590. The use of the word in a sense of "business association" was first recorded 1553, having earlier been used in reference to trade guilds (1303). The abbreviation co. dates from 1769.

History

According to one source, "it may be formed by Act of Parliament, by Royal Charter, or by registration under company law (referred to as a limited liability or joint-stock company)." In the United Kingdom, the main regulating laws are the Companies Act 1985 and the Companies Act 2006. Reportedly, "a company registered under this Act has limited liability: its owners (the shareholders) have no financial liability in the event of winding up the affairs of the company, but they might lose the money already invested in it". In the USA, companies are registered in a particular state—Delaware being especially favoured—and become Incorporated (Inc). "Company." Crystal Reference Encyclopedia. Crystal Reference Systems Limited. 27 Nov. 2007. Reference.com

In North America, two of the earliest companies were The London Company (also called the Charter of the Virginia Company of London)—a English joint stock company established by royal charter by James I of England on April 10, 1606 with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America—and Plymouth Company that was granted an identical charter as part of the Virginia Company. The London Company was responsible for establishing the Jamestown Settlement, the first permanent English settlement in the present United States in 1607, and in the process of sending additional supplies, inadvertently settled the Somers Isles, alias Bermuda, the oldest-remaining English colony, in 1609.