1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Incorporation

INCORPORATION (from Lat. incorporare, to form into a body), in law, the embodying or formation of a legal corporation, brought about either by a general rule contained in such laws, e.g. as the Companies acts, and applicable wherever its conditions are satisfied; or by a special act of sovereign power, e.g. an incorporating statute or charter. The word is used also in the sense of uniting, e.g. a will may incorporate by reference other papers, which may be then taken as part of the will, as much as if they were set out at length in it.