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Intermediary vs Vicarious - What's the difference?

intermediary | vicarious |

As adjectives the difference between intermediary and vicarious

is that intermediary is intermediate while vicarious is experienced or gained by the loss or to the consequence of another, such as through watching or reading.

As a noun intermediary

is an agent acting as a mediator between sides that may disagree.

intermediary

English

Adjective

(head)
  • Intermediate.

    • Noun

    (intermediaries)
  • An agent acting as a mediator between sides that may disagree.
  • *
    • A Mr. Whymper, a solicitor living in Willingdon, had agreed to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world
  • An arranger of a contract or other agreement who is separate from the parties to the agreement
  • One or several stages of an event which occurs after the start and before the end.
  • A person or organisation in an intermediate position in a supply chain of goods or services
    • The intermediary between the manufacturer and retailer is the wholesaler

    vicarious

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Experienced or gained by the loss or to the consequence of another, such as through watching or reading.
    • People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.
  • Done on behalf of others
    • The concept of vicarious atonement, that one person can atone for the sins of another, is found in many religions.

    Quotations

    {{timeline, 1800s=1886, 1900s=1900 1920}} * 1886 — ch 10 *: The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. * 1900 — ch 26 *: As time went on, the cruel custom was so far mitigated that a ram was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the royal victim. * 1920 — ch III *: In these, however, he had not much time to indulge, for a footman, still decked in the trappings of vicarious grief, opened the door with the most startling promptitude, and he was ushered upstairs into a small but richly furnished room.

    Derived terms

    * vicarious atonement * vicarious learning * vicarious liability * vicarious reinforcement

    Related terms

    * vicar * vicariously