COMPANY, a collective term, understood of several persons assembled together in the same place, or with the same design. The word is formed of the French compagnie, and that of companion or companies, which, Chifflet observes, are found in the Salic law, tit. 66, and are proper military words, being understood of soldiers, who, according to the modern phrase, are comrades or messmates, that is, lodge together, eat together, &c. The real etymon of the word therefore is, that it is compounded of the Latin cum, with, and panis, bread. It may be added, that in some Greek authors under the Western Empire the word κωμῶνα occurs in the sense of society.