English
company
Company comes from Middle English companye ‘a team’, and goes back to Old French compaignie.
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400compaignie1‘companionship’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500companye1‘a team’
- Englishearliest quotation 1526company1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English company
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1526, [William Tyndale, The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible): “Ye dooe knowe howe thatt hytt ys an vnlawefull…”.
Lineage
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400compaignieWiktionary, English company‘companionship’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500companyeWiktionary, English company‘a team’
- Englishearliest quotation 1526companyWiktionary, English company. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1526, [William Tyndale, The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible): “Ye dooe knowe howe thatt hytt ys an vnlawefull…”
The story
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.
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with company, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- ‘to protect, to ward’
- food ← fode ← fōda ← *fōdō ← *fōdô
- father ← fader ← fæder ← *fader ← *fadēr
- feed ← feden ← fēdan ← *fōdijan ← *fōdijaną
- pope ← pāpa ← papa ← παπᾶς ← πάπας
- pattern ← patron ← patron ← patrōnus ← pater
- foster ← fōstor ← *fōstr ← *fōstrą
- apparent ← apparaunt ← aparent ← appārēns
- fur ← furre ← forre ← *fōdar ← *fōdr
- pastor ← pastour ← pāscō ← *pāskō ← *péh₂sti
- penetration ← penetracioun ← penetracïon ← penetrātiō ← penetrō
- papa ← pater ← *patēr ← *ph₂tḗr
- patriot ← patriote ← patriōta ← πατριώτης ← πατρίς
97 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
noun A team; a group of people who work together for a common purpose.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “company”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Old French compaignie / company