Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One appointed or authorized to act for another, especially a person appointed to vote as one wishes at a meeting.
  • noun The authority to act for another.
  • noun The written authorization to act in place of another.
  • noun An entity or variable used to model or generate data assumed to resemble the data associated with another entity or variable that is typically more difficult to research.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The agency of a substitute; the office or authority of one who is deputed to act for another.
  • noun One who is deputed to represent or act for another; a deputy.
  • noun A document authorizing one person to act as substitute or deputy for another; a written authorization to exercise the powers and prerogatives of others.
  • noun That which takes the place of something else; a substitute.
  • noun Eccles., same as procuration, 4.
  • noun An election, or a day of election.
  • To vote or act by proxy, or by the agency of another.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb rare To act or vote by proxy; to do anything by the agency of another.
  • noun The agency for another who acts through the agent; authority to act for another, esp. to vote in a legislative or corporate capacity.
  • noun The person who is substituted or deputed to act or vote for another.
  • noun A writing by which one person authorizes another to vote in his stead, as in a corporation meeting.
  • noun (Eng. Law) The written appointment of a proctor in suits in the ecclesiastical courts.
  • noun (Eccl.), obsolete See Procuration.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun gaming, slang A proximity mine; a mine that explodes when something approaches within a certain distance.
  • adjective Used as a proxy or acting as a proxy.
  • noun An agent or substitute authorized to act for another person.
  • noun The authority to act for another, especially when written.
  • noun sciences A measurement of one physical quantity that is used as an indicator of the value of another
  • noun software An interface for a service, especially for one that is remote, resource-intensive, or otherwise difficult to use directly.
  • verb To serve as a proxy for.
  • verb networking To function as a server for a client device, but pass on the requests to another server for service.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a power of attorney document given by shareholders of a corporation authorizing a specific vote on their behalf at a corporate meeting
  • noun a person authorized to act for another

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English proccy, contraction of earlier procracie, annual payment to a prelate, from Anglo-Norman procuracie, from Medieval Latin prōcūrātia, alteration of Latin prōcūrātiō, from prōcūrātus, past participle of prōcūrāre, to take care of; see procure.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

proximity + -y

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Contraction of Anglo-Norman procuracie, from Medieval Latin procuratia, from Latin procuratio.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "In 2006, using U.S. trained and funded Ethiopian troops, the Bush administration intervened by proxy in a Somali civil war to oust a relatively moderate Islamist militia on the verge of unifying that desperate country for the first time in a long while. Two years later, the situation has only deteriorated further: the capital Mogadishu is in chaos, militant Islamists have retaken much of the south, those Ethiopian troops are preparing to withdraw, and the Bush-backed government to fall. At least, ten thousand Somalis have died and more than a third of the population, a jump of 77%, needs aid just to survive."

    - Tom Engelhardt, 'F is for Failure: The Bush Doctrine in Ruins', 21 Oct 2008.

    October 22, 2008

  • "Moderate Islamist militia" is about as oxymoronical as it gets.

    October 22, 2008