The definition of a "merry company" is far from rigid, and overlaps with several other types of painting. Portraits of family groups or bodies such as militia companies may borrow an informal style of composition from them, but works where the figures were intended to represent specific individuals are excluded. There are normally between four and about a dozen figures shown, which typically includes both men and women, but may just consist of men, perhaps with female servants, as in the Buytewech illustrated. Contemporary Dutch descriptions of paintings from inventories, auction catalogues and the like, use (no doubt somewhat arbitrarily) other terms for similar compositions including "a buitenpartij (an outdoor party or picnic), a cortegaarddje (a barrack-room or guardroom scene), a borddeeltjen (a bordello scene), and a beeldeken or moderne beelden (a picture with little figures or modern figures)".[4] "Musical party" or "concert" is often used when some of the main figures are playing instruments. More generally such works may be referred to as "company paintings" or "company subjects" (but this is not to be confused with Indian Company painting, a style patronized by the British East India Company). Few if any titles used for 17th century genre paintings can be traced to the artist; those used by museums and art historians today may derive from a record in the provenance or be made up in modern times.
Paintings showing specific celebrations such as weddings or the festivities for Twelfth Night, the main mid-winter celebration in the Netherlands, or the playing of specific games, are likely to have titles relating to these where the subject is still clear. For example a painting by Godfried Schalcken (1665–70, Royal Collection) is known from his biography by his pupil Arnold Houbraken to represent The game of 'Lady, Come into the Garden', and is so titled, although the rules of this are now unknown but "clearly involved the removal of clothes", at least by some male participants.[5] In La Main Chaud male participants just got smacked.[6] Paintings showing the parable of the Prodigal Son in his prodigal phase are conceived as merry company scenes of the brothel type, though they are often larger, as was expected of a history painting.