mediary

English

Noun

mediary (plural mediaries)

1. An intermediary or go-between; Something or someone that passes information, instructions, or influence between one person or thing and another person or thing.
   • 1993, Joshua Mitchell, Not by Reason Alone, →ISBN:

     The reason why fear and obedience figure prominently in Hobbes's notion of covenant is that the model for it is biblical; more precisely, it is based on his reading of the covenant between God, his mediary Moses, and the Israelites in Exodus.

   • 1995, John Russell, Hamlet and Narcissus, →ISBN, page 83:

     In this last work, Freud introduced his tripartite division of the psyche into three agencies: the id, the repository of instinctual impulse; the ego, the executive mediary between the drives of the id and the external world; and the superego, an independent sector of the ego given shape by the social proscriptions and ideals the child internalizes during its development.

   • 2007, James M. Brophy, Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland, 1800-1850, →ISBN:

     Because these uprisings were work-related and directed at employers, the state acted as mediary.

   • 2012, Rolfe A. Leary, Interaction theory in forest ecology and management, →ISBN, page 36:

     Sixth, when no mediary is present, each interaction participant can be said to form part of the other's environment.

Adjective

mediary (not comparable)

1. Intermediate.
   • 1921, The Optical Journal and Review of Optometry - Volume 48, page 44:

     I have made several three vision glasses for my patients requiring distant, near and mediary vision with signal success.

   • 2005, Randell E. Balin, Trends in Midwifery Research, →ISBN, page 30:

     The mediary role played by CNMs between the two systems is exemplified in that historically the “supervision and training of granny midwives [w]as the major responsibility for which the first American-trained nurse-midwives were prepared”

   • 2012, R. Grathoff, The Structure of Social Inconsistencies, →ISBN:

     Husserl pointed out that it is the mediary state between both kinds of interests, the indeterminateness and vagueness of a still only fugitive theme, which is germinal for processes of inquiry initiated by "an effort to come closer and closer to the object."

2. Acting to cause or connect.
   • 1928, Harvard University, Summaries of Theses Accepted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, page 134:

     In this last instance, simple relativity may be called mediary relativity, (a R b) where a is some medium, such as air, between the knower and the known, and b is the resultant knowledge.

   • 1968, Robert L. Miller, The Linguistic Relativity Principle and Humboldtian Ethnoliguistics, →ISBN, page 54:

     Because language intervenes between us and reality, so to speak, categorizing reality for us, Weisgerber believes that the speakers of different languages live in different 'linguistic mediary worlds' (sprachliche Zwischenwelten).

   • 2013, Philip C. Kendall, Jan H. Slavenburg, Henk P.J.G. van Bilsen, Behavioral Approaches for Children and Adolescents, →ISBN:

     To some such an approach might seem a bit myopic in eschewing mediary constructs such as thoughts, feelings, and motivation that are assumed to be important aspects of psychological functioning, but one cogent argument is that such singularity of the model was necessary for the development of the field.

3. (computing, dated) Storing data that is written by one process so that it can be read by another process.
   • 1959, Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, page 155:

     This tape becomes the system mediary input tape and is in turn processed by the system.

   • 1962, NASA SP, page 26:

     Many applications, however, require the use of mediary, or scratch files.

   • 1964, F. Peter Fisher, George F. Swindle, Computer programming systems, page 564:

     This converted data is written on the mediary output tape immediately behind the absolute program which is going to read it. In this manner, separate jobs are processed one after another and written onto the mediary output tape for later execution.

4. (medicine) occurring during the course of a disease.
   • 1915, New York (N.Y.). Dept. of Health, Reprint Series - Issues 39-63, page 19:

     Mediary disinfection, that occurring during the course of the disease, is of great value.

   • 1916, Wisconsin State Board of Health, Proceedings of the Third Biennial Conference of Health Officers of the State of Wisconsin, page 65:

     With this disease and probably with every other disease mediary disinfection is very much more important than terminal disinfection.

   • 1927, Carl Esselstyn McCombs, City Health Administration, page 133:

     Concurrent or mediary disinfection is the immediate disinfection of the bodily discharges of the patient or other substances and articles which may have been contaminated by his use of them.

5. (heraldry, of color) Having a primary hue (red, blue, or gold), as opposed to one that can be created by mixing colors with primary hues.
   • 1943, Evan John Jones, Medieval Heraldry: Some Fourteenth Century Heraldic Works, page 19:

     Charles king of France by an angel a shield of blue with three fleur-de-lis of gold together with other armour: and on both these occasions the foundation and field of the arms was azure, and this was superior to the gold. Therefore it is clear that this colour is the chief of all mediary and submediary colours.

   • 2011, Carole P. Biggam, Carole A. Hough, Christian J. Kay, New Directions in Colour Studies, →ISBN, page 200:

     The colours primary in themselves are the colours white and black; the colours truly mediary are blue, gold, and red; the sub-mediary colours are green and any Similar if there are any.

   • 2014, K.P. Clarke, Sarah Baccianti, On Light, →ISBN, page 41:

     In answering this dilemma, Bado assesses the colours of fourteenth-century heraldry according to their status as primary, mediary or sub-mediary; their relative honour determined by the amount of elemental mixing gone into their creation. Thus Bado's opines that white is the highest colour in terms of honour, closely followed by black -- as opposed to Bartolo's contention that black was the lowest colour. (Red and blue are superior to green (as sub-mediary) in all fourteenth-century accounts of armorial colour I have seen)

6. (semiotics) Defining or inferring a generalization or category of meaning.
   • 1991, Floyd Merrell, Signs Becoming Signs: Our Perfusive, Pervasive Universe, page 93:

     All is continuous, as Thirdness, generality, a temporal and mediary collusion of the values of the possible (as Firstness) and the singular (as Secondness).

   • 2000, Susan Petrilli, La traduzione, →ISBN, page 86:

     Thirdness can be tentatively qualified as that which brings about mediation between two other entities in such a manner that they are related to each other in the same way they are related to the third entity as a result of its mediary act.

   • 2005, Paul Cobley, The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics, →ISBN, page 33:

     Due to the mediary role of thirdness, each of the categories can intermittently play the role of any of the other categories. Yet at a given space-time juncture, one of the three will be a first, one a second, and one a third.

Anagrams

• mid-year, midyear