middleman
Americannoun
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middlemen
plural
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a person who plays an economic role intermediate between producer and retailer or consumer.
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a person who acts as an intermediary.
noun
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an independent trader engaged in the distribution of goods from producer to consumer
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an intermediary
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theatre the interlocutor in minstrel shows
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of middleman
1400–50; late Middle English: maker of girdles; see middle, man
Explanation
A middleman is someone who works buying goods from one source and selling them to another. For example, if you are selling your house, your real estate agent acts as the middleman between you and the buyer. Anyone whose job involves buying and re-selling can be called a middleman, although sometimes the thing being sold is some kind of service rather than physical goods. One example of a middleman is a wholesaler who buys fruit and vegetables from farmers and then distributes them to large supermarkets. While sometimes it makes more sense for farmers to sell directly to stores, a middleman can simplify the process.
Vocabulary lists containing middleman
History of India - Introductory
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History of India - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Before SpaceX went public, Kahlon made a fortune by acting as a middleman for investors hoping to add the rocket company to their portfolio.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026
India has positioned itself as a global middleman for the creation, processing and annotation of AI data.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
Moffett said that, in the old days, television channels didn’t have to worry about irking customers with rising costs, because that relationship was handled by a middleman — the cable companies.
From MarketWatch ● May 28, 2026
"Children's homes continue to offer a compelling alternative to traditional buy-to-lets," argues one middleman who markets his ability to secure the required planning permission on Instagram.
From BBC ● May 20, 2026
On one occasion, Borgenicht realized that his only chance to undercut bigger firms was to convince the wholesalers to sell cloth to him directly, eliminating the middleman.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
The Ga people became middlemen who traded with Europeans.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Investigators say that scarcity has fuelled increasingly sophisticated paper-leak rackets, linking teachers, middlemen and exam-centre staff.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
Church associations can aggregate and sell those goods in bulk, giving families better returns, reducing the power of middlemen and lowering costs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
PBMs are the middlemen between insurance companies and employers when it comes to prescription-drug coverage.
From MarketWatch ● May 28, 2026
That, after all, was the dealers’ stated function: middlemen.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
