East India Company

American  

noun

1. the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.

2. any similar company, as one chartered by the Dutch (1602–1798), the French (1664–1769), or the Danes (1729–1801).

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East India Company British  

noun

1. the company chartered in 1600 by the British government to trade in the East Indies: after being driven out by the Dutch, it developed trade with India until the Indian Mutiny (1857), when the Crown took over the administration: the company was dissolved in 1874

2. any similar trading company, such as any of those founded by the Dutch, French, and Danes in the 17th and 18th centuries

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Example Sentences

Paterson persuaded the Scottish parliament to establish a new enterprise based on England’s East India Company to found a Scottish colony on the narrow isthmus joining North and South America.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025

The shocking history of the East India Company, which transformed itself from an international trading company into an aggressive colonial power between 1600 and 1874, is a classic example.

From Salon • Sep. 29, 2024

And they may have stowed away on Dutch and British East India Company trade routes to get to Europe about 270 years ago, according to scientists’ reconstruction and historical records.

From Seattle Times • May 20, 2024

He arrived at Fort St George, the White colony in Madras, as a young man in 1672 with a clerical job with East India Company.

From BBC • Mar. 12, 2024

We know from a mid-seventeenth-century account of an “Embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, to the Grand Tartar, Cham, Emperor of China.”

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan