agent
/ˈeɪ̯d͡ʒənt/
Frequency: 4.81 in modern English
Meaning
noun
One who acts for, or in the place of, another (the principal), by that person's authority; someone entrusted to act on behalf of or in behalf of another, such as to transact business for them.
noun
Someone who works for an intelligence agency: whether an officer or employee thereof or anyone else who agrees to help their efforts (for ideology, for money, as blackmailee, or otherwise).
noun
An active power or cause or substance; something (e.g. biological, chemical, thermal, etc.) that has the power to produce an effect.
noun
In the client-server model, the part of the system that performs information preparation and exchange on behalf of a client or server. Especially in the phrase “intelligent agent” it implies some kind of autonomous process which can communicate with other agents to perform some collective task on behalf of one or more humans.
Example Sentences
- "Seeing we are so wonderfully endowed with priceless gifts by our Heavenly Father, will he not require usury at our hands? He will. But he has made us agents to ourselves, which makes us responsible for the way in which we use the talents he has given us, for the manner we expend the gold and silver, the wheat and fine flour, the cattle upon a thousand hills, and the wine and oil, for they all belong to Him"
- "He worked as an agent for the government."
- "I see in him [Moby Dick] outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him."
- "Having a good buyer’s agent also means having someone who is knowledgeable about the local real estate market and who has the skills and competence to negotiate with the seller’s agent on your behalf."
- "Ronald Koeman has agreed a deal with Everton to become their new manager, his agent has reportedly told Dutch media. The agent Rob Jansen said, according to the popular Voetbal International website, that it was now down to Southampton and Everton to agree a compensation package for the Dutchman, who has a year remaining on his contract at St Mary’s."
- "@Gary, are you a PAP agent? ... =) trying to incite rebellion and revolution on this site so that the govt will have an excuse to take down this site?"
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *h₂eǵ-, agēns
Usage
- American usage