cooperative
nounEtymology From co- + operative.
1
A type of company that is owned partially or wholly by its employees, customers or tenants.
- The head of an agricultural producers’ cooperative in Chien-shih county of Hupei Province lectured his peasant wife: “To gain emancipation, women must do production work just like men.”1965 [1959], C. K. Yang, “Changing Family Economic Structure”, in Chinese Communist Society: The Family and The Village, The M.I.T. Press, →OCLC, page 153:
- Among wholesalers, voluntary and cooperatives carry a far wider range and number of items in private brands than do unaffiliateds.1968, Progressive Grocer's Marketing Guidebook, page 13:
- Derived terms
- anticooperative, co-op, cooperative federalism, cooperative game, cooperativeness, cooperative principle, cooperativism, cooperativist, cooperativity, cooperativize, noncooperative, platform cooperative, protocooperative, uncooperative