Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- the act of incorporating or the state of being incorporated.
- the act of forming a legal corporation.
- Grammar. the inclusion of the object or object reference within the inflected verb form, a type of word-formation frequent in American Indian languages.
- Psychoanalysis. the adoption of the views or characteristics of others, occurring in children as part of learning and maturation and in adults as a defense mechanism.
late 14c., incorporacioun, “act or process of combining of substances; absorption of light or moisture,” from Old French incorporacion or directly from Late Latin incorporationem (nominative incorporatio), noun of action from past participle stem of incorporare (see incorporate). Meaning “the formation of a corporate body” (such as a guild) is from early 15c.
Incorporation, n. The act of uniting several persons into one fiction called a corporation, in order that they may be no longer responsible for their actions. A, B and C are a corporation. A robs, B steals and C (it is necessary that there be one gentleman in the concern) cheats. It is a pundering, thieving, swindling corporation. But A, B and C, who have jointly determined and severally executed every crime of the corporation, are blameless. [Ambrose Bierce, 1885]