| 释义 |
agency|ˈeɪdʒənsɪ|
[ad. med.L. agentia = facultas agendi, n. of state f. agent-em pr. pple. of ag-ĕre to do, act.]
1. The faculty of an agent or of acting; active working or operation; action, activity.
1658Sir H. Slingsby Diary (1836) 208 Privacy..if your Hours in it are not well employed, may become as dangerous as a place of agency. 1762Edwards Freed. Will i. v. (R.) The moral agency of the Supreme Being..differs in that respect from the moral agency of created intelligent beings. 1830Coleridge Ch. & St. 140 The State shall leave the largest portion of personal free agency to each of its citizens, that is compatible with the free agency of all.
2. Working as a means to an end; instrumentality, intermediation.
1674Ch. & Crt. of Rome 17 The Agency of the Romish Factors with the King of Spain, for the procuring a second Invasion of their Native Country. a1691J. Flavel quoted in H. Miller Sch. & Schoolm. ix. (1866) 87 That the moral infection came by way of physical agency. 1785T. Jefferson Corr. Wks. 1859 I. 416 To set our treaty with the piratical States into motion, through his agency. 1815Bakewell Introd. Geol. 439 The geologists who exclude the agency of fire from the formation of rocks. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 175 A complete explanation and reconciliation were brought about by the agency of Gilbert Burnet. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. Introd. 3 Requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other.
3. Action or instrumentality embodied or personified as concrete existence.
1784Beckford Vathek (1868) 20 An invisible agency arrested his progress. a1843Southey To Allan Cunningham Wks. III. 310 And still Antonides and Hooft Are living agencies. c1854Stanley Sinai & Pal. i. (1858) 35 The agency by which the sea was dried up was ‘a strong east wind.’
4. Comm. The office or function of an agent or factor.
a1745Swift (J.) Content to live cheap in a worse country, rather than be at the charge of exchange and agencies. 1800Wellesley Desp. 715 Foreigners deal directly with the natives, or with foreign houses of agency. 1875Poste Gaius iii. (ed. 2) 429 In the contract of agency..the principal is called dominus or mandator.
5. An establishment for the purpose of doing business for another, usually at a distance.
1861Act 19 of Legisl. Counc. India vi, In any Circle of Issue there may be also established an Agency or Agencies of Issue in connection with a Bank or otherwise. 1882Daily News 4 Sept. 6/3 General Foreign News (through Reuter's Agency). Ibid. 14 Oct. 8/4 (Advt.) Solicitor to a Debt Collecting and General Trades Protection Agency. Ibid. 28 Aug. 8/7 (Advt.) Ladies requiring English and Foreign Governesses..are invited to send particulars to the Governesses' Agency.
6. The office of an Indian agent, or the establishment forming the headquarters of one. U.S.
1707S. Carolina Statutes at Large (1837) II. 314, I will neither directly nor indirectly trade with any Indian..during the time of my agency. 1824Publ. Stat. U.S.A. (1856) IV. 25 It shall be the duty of each Indian agent to reside and keep his agency within, or near the territory claimed by the tribe or tribes of Indians for which he may be agent. 1878J. H. Beadle Western Wilds xiii. 198 We concluded we had better see the Creeks at home, and started afoot for the Agency. 1895C. King Fort Frayne xvi. 228 Eleven o'clock came and..no further authority from the agency.
attrib.1873J. H. Beadle Undevel. West xxv. 527 The last grain in the Agency storehouse was issued to them on the 14th. 1901S. E. White Westerners viii. 57 Rain-in-the-Face was at once an agency Indian and a reckless man.
7. Special Comb. agency shop U.S., a workshop or other establishment in which employees maintain the right not to join the recognized trade union, if a sum equivalent to the union subscription is paid to the union (or to a charitable organization); an agreement or system of this kind.
1952Monthly Labor Rev. (U.S. Dept. Labor) LXXIV. June p. iv, The union agreed to eliminate the union-shop provision of the previous contract and to accept the ‘*agency shop.’ 1963Economist 27 Apr. 326/1 The Douglas Aircraft Corporation..broke ranks and agreed to an ‘agency shop’; this requires workers who do not join the recognised union to pay it the equivalent of union dues. 1971Mod. Law Rev. XXXIV. vi. 660 Only a registered union can be a party to a valid agency-shop agreement. 1979N.Y. Rev. Bks. 17 May 11/3 The constraints on the city's ability to get itself out of its destructive relationship with labor are many. The municipal unions have had an agency shop since 1977. |