Corporatized

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The transition of a public institution into a corporate entity involves restructuring and redefining its operational methodology for profit
2. The act of changing an organization’s structure to function as a business entity includes adopting corporate governance and commercial strategies
3. Having been transformed into a corporate organization, often with an emphasis on business management and profit orientation

Etymology: The past tense of "corporatize" is built from "corporate" plus the suffix "-ize", which carries a long journey behind it. The suffix began in ancient Greek as "-izein", a verb-forming ending that Late Latin took up as "-izare" and that reached English through Old French and Middle English as "-ise" and "-ize". Each time it passed into a new language, it was attached to nouns and adjectives to mean "make into" or "treat in the manner of," which is exactly the job it does here. "Corporate" comes from Latin "corporatus", meaning "formed into a body," from "corpus", "body." The idea is that a group of people, joined together, becomes a single body with its own legal identity. Adding "-ize" to it produces the sense "to turn something into a corporation," and by extension "to make something operate along corporate lines." The verb is a plain, transparent formation, so its story is mostly the story of the suffix.

Synonyms: commercialized, privatized, institutionalized, structured, organized

Antonyms: decentralized, disorganized, unstructured, dismantled, disbanded