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say it: AY-juhn-see
agency is a noun meaning "an administrative unit of government". It carries 5 recorded senses.
an administrative unit of government
“the Central Intelligence Agency”
“the Census Bureau”
“Office of Management and Budget”
“Tennessee Valley Authority”
a business or organization that provides a particular service, especially the mediation of transactions between two parties
the state of being in action or exerting power
“the agency of providence”
“she has free agency”
the state of serving as an official and authorized delegate or agent
thing or person that acts to produce a particular effect or achieve an end
“a means of control”
“an example is the best agency of instruction”
“the true way to success”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for agency come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.