agency
/ˈeɪ.d͡ʒən.si/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.87 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
The office or function of an agent; also, the relationship between a principal and that person's agent.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
An establishment engaged in doing business for another; also, the place of business or the district of such an agency.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A department or other administrative unit of a government; also, the office or headquarters of, or the district administered by, such unit of government.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "A few advances there are in the following papers tending to assert the superintendence and agency of Providence in the natural world."
- "Because structure in this argument means institutions— pregiven norms, values, beliefs, and practices— it is open-textured, incomplete, cannot guarantee its own applications, therefore, all behavior is action, has agency (Garfinkel 1964; Strauss et al. 1963)."
- "moral agency"
- "individual agency"
- "Formally, capitalism performs its fundamental gesture—reappropriation without transformation. This bears on the question of subjective agency because this “reappropriation without transformation” is exactly what agency seeks to avoid; such a process indicates, in fact, that one's agency has failed, that one really had no agency in the first place."
- "Strictly speaking, at the level of personal agency one could say that power is a condition where one is “enabled.” I would contend that this is a condition of personal agency."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti Proto-Italic *agō Latin agō Latin agēns Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ia Medieval Latin agēntiabor. English agency From Medieval Latin agentia, from Latin agēns (present participle of agere (“to act”)), agentis (cognate with French agence, see also agent).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: agentia, agēns