Company, like companion, from com plus panis: the bread-sharing fellowship. Medieval guilds and military companies formalized it; joint-stock companies commercialized it. Accompany, companion, and pantry complete the set. A company is a table that learned to issue shares.
The proverb layer: company as the antidote to loneliness, from misery loves company to two's company. The commercial sense inherited the warmth by accident and now trades on it: brands sell companionship with the bread word still warm.
Pantry, the bread-closet, is the family's forgotten member, the only one that never left the kitchen. Companion, company, pantry: fellowship, corporation, shelf. One Latin loaf became friendship, capitalism, and storage, in ascending order of abstraction.
Is every corporation still, legally and etymologically, a meal?