companía

Companía is a term used in Iberian languages to denote an organized group formed for business, professional, or social purposes. In Spanish the standard form is compañía, which can refer to a business firm (una compañía), a theater troupe (una compañía de teatro), or a group of people acting together in a common task. In Portuguese, the corresponding word is companhia, used for a business entity as well as a troupe or team engaged in work or performance.

Etymology and related forms trace compañía back to Latin and Romance-language roots meaning fellowship or association, passing into Old French and then into the Iberian languages. The spelling reflects language-specific orthography: Spanish uses the ñ and the accent on í, while Portuguese uses the nh digraph and a tilde on a.

Usage notes include that compañÍa in Spanish is the conventional spelling for the concept, while compańía without proper diacritics is treated as a misspelling in modern contexts. The term also appears in compound proper names and institutional titles, such as historical companies or theater organizations. Beyond business and theater, compañía can denote any organized group formed to pursue shared objectives, including military or exploratory units in historical texts.

See also: Company, Companhia, Compagnie.