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Definition
someone who acts as a link between two others who don't talk directly — such as a realtor between a buyer and seller, or a friend between two people so angry they will not speak with each other- Officially, North and South Korea were not talking at the time, but they were using the French as an unofficial intermediary to keep the lines of communication open.
intermediary = someone who acts as a link between two others who don't talk directly
- The witness said he paid the bribe to an intermediary and never spoke with the congressman.
- A Mr. Whymper, a solicitor living in Willingdon, had agreed to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world, and would visit the farm every Monday morning to receive his instructions.George Orwell -- Animal Farm
- He knows the peril to the race when our dead father, who goes as intermediary, waits and waits and knows he is betrayed.Wole Soyinka -- Death and the King's Horseman
- They made Tutsis (and in Burundi, both Tutsis and a small princely class) into their intermediaries.Tracy Kidder -- Strength in What Remains
- Perhaps you could act as an intermediary?Dan Brown -- The Da Vinci Code
- Protestants practice confession, too, though a little less formally, often confiding in God without an intermediary.Todd Burpo -- Heaven Is for Real
- Through an intermediary, I'd guess.Henry H. Neff -- The Second Siege
- All my client asks is for me to be the only intermediary.Robert Ludlum -- The Bourne Ultimatum
- Dinners at night were eaten in silence, and if either of them required anything of the other, David or his mother were impressed as intermediaries.Henry Roth -- Call It Sleep
- His information was conveyed through a series of intermediaries to the chief of the CIA's Moscow station.Tom Clancy -- The Hunt for Red October
- Through intermediaries he went on the closed international market and sold to the highest bidder.'Robert Ludlum -- The Bourne Supremacy
- Others so that God would not take the disdain for His intermediary as a personal insult.Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- When he needed anything he used Kochu Maria or Baby Kochamma as intermediaries.Arundhati Roy -- The God of Small Things
- Many people make somewhat similar estimates, and are surprised to learn that only five intermediaries will — on average — suffice.Malcolm Gladwell -- The Tipping Point
- Toward the end of 1959, Mundt informed his London masters that he had found within the Praesidium a man who would act as intermediary between them and Mundt.John Le Carre -- The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
- The presence of the secretary as an intermediary was, he judged, essential in this case.Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- The Idiot
- I remember the day the intermediary handed it to me.Lisa See -- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
- His wife, Nfvea, preferred to deal with God without benefit of intermediaries.Isabel Allende -- The House of Spirits
- Through intermediaries.Robert Ludlum -- The Bourne Identity
intermediary = someone who acts as a link between two others who don't talk directly
intermediary = someone who acts as a link between two others who do not meet with each other directly