subagent

English

Alternative forms

• sub-agent

Etymology

From sub- + agent. First attested in 1683.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sŭb′ā′jənt
• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌsʌbˈeɪ̯.d͡ʒənt/
• (Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌsɐbˈæɪ̯.d͡ʒənt/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˌsʌbˈe.d͡ʒənt/, /ˌsʌbˈe.d͡ʒʌnt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪdʒənt
• Hyphenation: sub‧a‧gent

Noun

subagent (plural subagents)

1. (law) A person employed by an agent to transact the whole, or a part, of the business entrusted to the latter.
   • 1915, Harry Noyes Greene, William Mark McKinney, David Shephard Garland, American and English Annotated Cases, page 22:

     Where a subagent is appointed pursuant to actual or implied authority from the principal the principal is liable directly to the subagent for his compensation .

   • 1918, Israel A. Washburne, Principles of the Law of Contracts, page 37:

     Where a subagent is appointed by authority of the principal, the subagent is, so far as relates to third persons, the agent of the principal, and the acts of the subagent are binding upon the principal;

   • 2003, Donna K. Peeples, Minor Peeples, Texas Real Estate Agency, page 120:

     Confusing relationships, disclosures, and conflicts arise if the licensee acts as subagent with one buyer and buyer's agent with another buyer on the same property.

2. (computing) An autonomous process that is launched by and communicates with another agent in order to handle part of the task that is the objective of that other agent.
   • 2003, Dwaine Snow, Thomas X. Phan, Advanced DBA Certification Guide and Reference for DB2 Universal Database v8:

     On a UNIX system, the coordinating agent and subagent processes will have different names.

   • 2006, Lydia Parziale, Dr. Wei Liu, Carolyn Matthews, TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview, page 632:

     An SNMP subagent supports its own MIB, which might be an RFC-architected MIV, or might be a proprietary (referered to as enterprise-specific) MIB. For example, a TCP/IP subagent would most likely support the IP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, and Interface groups defined in RFC 1213.

   • 2019, Frances Mahan, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Us:

     Originally, the purpose of creating an AI subagent will be to enhance new horizons in protocol and use it to help protect human agents in the field.

Further reading

• “subagent”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.