Definition

Someone who acts on behalf of another person or entity, wielding their principal's authority like a borrowed credit card. In business, this is your talent scout, real estate broker, or literary representative. The term spans everything from insurance agents to secret agents, though only one of those gets the cool gadgets.

Example Usage

Our agent negotiated a 15% commission rate and secured the publishing deal within two weeks.

Source: Business and legal terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

Run the numbers

To perform calculations or financial analysis, often said by people who have no intention of actually doing the math themselves. The prelude to finding out you can't afford it.

💼 Corporate / Business
Advanced

ButR

Business-to-Robot, the emerging field of companies selling products and services directly to AI agents and automated systems rather than humans. Because why market to carbon-based life forms when silicon is more profitable?

💼 Corporate / Business
Beginner

Hard Stop

An immovable end time for a meeting, usually announced by the most senior person in the room as a power move. Having a hard stop is the corporate equivalent of Batman's smoke bomb -- deploy it and vanish.

💼 Corporate / Business
Intermediate

Parallel path

Working on multiple approaches simultaneously in case one fails, which sounds strategic until you realize you're just doing twice the work. The corporate version of hedging your bets.

💼 Corporate / Business
Advanced

shadow organization

The informal network of relationships and power structures that actually gets work done, completely separate from the official org chart. Where real decisions happen over lunch rather than in meetings.

💼 Corporate / Business
Beginner

Rubber stamp

To approve something without actual review or scrutiny, just going through the motions like a bored bureaucrat at the DMV. The illusion of governance without the inconvenience of actually governing.

💼 Corporate / Business

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See “agent” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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