Definition of "corporation"

That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.

1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp‎

[The Rector], looming large in full canonicals, walking, as became a beneficed priest, under the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the dignity of an ample corporation, the embellishment of the squarest and vastest of black coats, and the support of the stoutest of gold-headed canes.

1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 5, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […]

'You'd be surprised,' said Stanley, as though this were intensely interesting, 'at the number of chaps at the club who have got a corporation.'

1918, Katherine Mansfield, ‘Prelude’, Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, page 91

He was a big chap with a corporation already, and a flat face rather like Dora's, and he had a thin black moustache.

1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 316

The sergeant was a goner. There was only one way to save him, and he threw himself on top, hurling the man to the ground. He lay covering his corporation with as much as his body and limbs would allow.

2001, Jamie O’Neill, At Swim, Two Boys‎, London: Scribner, Part 2, Chapter 20, p. 620