Word definition: agency

Etimology


From Medieval Latin agentia, from Latin agēns (present participle of agere (“to act”)), agentis (cognate with French agence, see also agent).

noun


agency (countable and uncountable, plural agencies)

The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.

(sociology, philosophy, psychology) The capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.

A medium through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.

The office or function of an agent; also, the relationship between a principal and that person's agent.

An establishment engaged in doing business for another; also, the place of business or the district of such an agency.

A department or other administrative unit of a government; also, the office or headquarters of, or the district administered by such unit of government.

Examples


Synonyms: action, activity, operation

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 .

Coordinate terms: free will, structure

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.

The feeling of being in control of one's body should involve the sense of body-ownership, plus an additional sense of agency.

Synonyms: instrumentality, means

authority of agency

Synonym: management

Hyponyms: advertising agency, dating agency, employment agency, escort agency, introduction agency, modelling agency, news agency, press agency, relief agency, syndication agency, travel agency

As an employment agency you have a responsibility to supply work to the individual agency worker, as well as a service to the client.

Hyponyms: antitrust agency, intelligence agency, space agency

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Central Intelligence Agency

Related words


related terms

act

action

agent

Data provided by Wiktionary