Vicarious vs Agent - What's the difference?
vicarious | agent |
Experienced or gained by the loss or to the consequence of another, such as through watching or reading.
Done on behalf of others
One who exerts power, or has the power to act; an actor.
One who acts for, or in the place of, another (the principal), by authority from him; one intrusted with the business of another; a substitute; a deputy; a factor.
An active power or cause; that which has the power to produce an effect; as, a physical, chemical, or medicinal agent ; as, heat is a powerful agent.
(computing) In the client-server model, the part of the system that performs information preparation and exchange on behalf of a client or server. Especially in the phrase “intelligent agent” it implies some kind of autonomous process which can communicate with other agents to perform some collective task on behalf of one or more humans.
(grammar) The participant of a situation that carries out the action in this situation, e.g. "the boy" in the sentences "The boy kicked the ball" and "The ball was kicked by the boy".
As an adjective vicarious
is experienced or gained by the loss or to the consequence of another, such as through watching or reading.As a noun agent is
agent (intermediary for certain services, such as for artistic performances or public relations).vicarious
English
Adjective
(-)- People experience vicarious pleasures through watching television.
- 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 reinforcementagent
English
(wikipedia agent)Noun
(en noun)- Heaven made us agents , free to good or ill. --Dryden.
- I see in him [Moby Dick] outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent , or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. --Herman Melville, , ch. 36