Other forms: agencies
An agency is a business acting for others, or the power to act. An advertising agency, a government agency, a sense of agency.
The second sense is the interesting one: agency means being the author of your own actions, and losing that sense is a feature of several conditions and of institutions that decide everything for people. An agency acts for a principal, which is what agency law is about. Note that the Latin means acting.
1nounagencyA business acting for others.
“She found her new job through an employment agency.”
2nounpowerThe power to act for yourself.
“The programme aims to give young people more agency over their own lives.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
agency is a business, or a capacity.
Medieval Latin agentia comes from agere, to act or drive. Agent, agile and agenda come from the same acting.
Medieval Latin
agēntia
English, today
agency
Built from
Borrowed from Medieval Latin agēntia. From Medieval Latin agentia, from Latin agēns (present participle of agere (“to act”)), agentis (cognate with French agence, see also agent).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA