agency
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈeɪ.d͡ʒən.si/
Forms: form: agencies
Etymology: From Medieval Latin agentia, from Latin agēns (present participle of agere (“to act”)), agentis (cognate with French agence, see also agent).
Senses: examples: text: A few advances there are in the following papers tending to assert the superintendence and agency of Providence in the natural world.
ref: 1695, John Woodward, “(please specify the page)”, in An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth: And Terrestrial Bodies, Especially Minerals: […], London: […] Ric[hard] Wilkin […], →OCLC:
text: 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).
ref: 2018, Morris Zelditch, Status, Power, and Legitimacy, page 65:
synonyms: action
activity
operation
glosses: The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.
examples: text: moral agency
text: individual agency
text: 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.
ref: 2001, Todd McGowan, The Feminine "No!", SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 105:
text: 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.
ref: 2012, Edmund V. Sullivan, A Critical Psychology, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 75:
text: The feeling of being in control of one's body should involve the sense of body-ownership, plus an additional sense of agency.
ref: 2013, Andy Clark, Julian Kiverstein, Tillmann Vierkant, Decomposing the Will, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 112:
text: SCP-3125 incarnated the following winter.
Its first act upon its arrival — or, depending on the degree of intelligent agency you ascribed to it, the first side-effect of its arrival — was the neutralisation of the Foundation.
ref: 2019 August 26, qntm, “Unthreaded”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 161:
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
psychology
sciences
social-science
sociology
coordinate_terms: free will
structure
glosses: The capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.
synonyms: instrumentality
means
glosses: A medium through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.
examples: text: authority of agency
glosses: The office or function of an agent; also, the relationship between a principal and that person's agent.
examples: text: As an employment agency you have a responsibility to supply work to the individual agency worker, as well as a service to the client.
ref: 2012, Simon Toms, The Impact of the UK Temporary Employment Industry in Assisting Agency Workers since the Year 2000, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 277:
synonyms: management
glosses: An establishment engaged in doing business for another; also, the place of business or the district of such an agency.
examples: text: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
text: Central Intelligence Agency
glosses: A department or other administrative unit of a government; also, the office or headquarters of, or the district administered by, such unit of government.
Synonyms: word: action
word: activity
word: agency
word: agent
word: agentship
word: cause
word: device
word: force
word: function
word: means
word: operation
word: power
Derived terms: advertising agency
agency credit memo
agency debit memo
agency dilemma
agencylike
agency pricing
agency problem
agency shop
agencywide
alphabet agency
cabinet agency
causal agency
coagency
collection agency
counteragency
Crow Agency
cyberagency
dating agency
employment agency
escort agency
estate agency
free agency
Highways Agency
intelligence agency
interagency
inter-agency
introduction agency
marriage agency
miniagency
moral agency
multiagency
newsagency
news agency
nonagency
press agency
quasi-judicial agency
regulatory agency
relief agency
service agency
space agency
state liquor agency
subagency
superagency
syndication agency
temp agency
three-letter agency
three letter agency
tourist agency
travel agency
Related terms: act
action
agent