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Agency vs Intention - What's the difference?

agency | intention |

As nouns the difference between agency and intention

is that agency is the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power; action or activity; operation while intention is a course of action that a person intends to follow.

agency

English

(Webster 1913)

Noun

(agencies)
  • The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power; action or activity; operation.
  • The superintendence and agency of Providence in the natural world. --Woodward.
  • A person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved: instrumentality, means.
  • The office or function of an agent; also, the relationship between a principal and that person's agent.
  • An establishment engaged in doing business for another; also, the place of business or the district of such an agency.
  • A department or other administrative unit of a government; also, the office or headquarters of, or the district administered by such unit of government.
  • Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
    Central Intelligence Agency

    Synonyms

    * action * operation * efficiency * instrumentality * management

    Derived terms

    {{der3, dating agency , employment agency , escort agency , introduction agency , news agency , press agency , relief agency , syndication agency , travel agency}}

    intention

    Alternative forms

    * entention (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A course of action that a person intends to follow.
  • :
  • *(Samuel Johnson) (1709-1784) (but see Apocryhpha )
  • *:Hell is paved with good intentions .
  • *
  • *:“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
  • *{{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild
  • , title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=3 , passage=It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless. And results are all that concern me.
  • The goal or purpose behind a specific action or set of actions.
  • :
  • (lb) Tension; straining, stretching.
  • *, I.iii.3:
  • *:cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations […].
  • A stretching or bending of the mind toward of the mind toward an object; closeness of application; fixedness of attention; earnestness.
  • *(John Locke) (1632-1705)
  • *:Intention is when the mind, with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea.
  • (lb) The object toward which the thoughts are directed; end; aim.
  • *1732 , (John Arbuthnot), An Essay Concerning the Nature of Ailments … , Prop. II, p.159:
  • *:In a Word, the most part of chronical Distempers proceed from Laxity of Fibres; in which Case the principal Intention is to restore the Tone of the solid Parts;.
  • (lb) Any mental apprehension of an object.
  • (lb) The process of the healing of a wound.
  • *2007 , Carie Ann Braun, ?Cindy Miller Anderson, Pathophysiology: Functional Alterations in Human Health , p.49:
  • *:When healing occurs by primary intention , the wound is basically closed with all areas of the wound connecting and healing simultaneously.
  • (Webster 1913)

    Derived terms

    * intentional * the road to hell is paved with good intentions * well-intentioned