Englishfor English speakers
agency
Noun
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An agency is a group of people called agents working together, or a place where agents work.
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# An agency is a company (business) which usually represents other people. The people at the agency work as agents to represent (stand for) their customers.
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#:Our agency works to help people find jobs in music.
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# Agency is a company that does something specific.
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#:Our ad agency has made advertisements for many important businesses.
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# An agency is a certain part of a government.
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#:He works for the real CIA, the actual Central Intelligence Agency.
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Agency is the ability to do something.
by
Preposition
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near or next to.
The mailbox is by the bus stop.
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at some time before (the given time).
Be back by ten o'clock!
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if something is done by somebody, it is done through their action
The matter was decided by the chairman.
The boat was swamped by the water.
He was protected by his body armour.
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if something is created by somebody, they are the creator, author, etc.
There are many well-known plays by William Shakespeare.
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shows how someone does something
I avoided the guards by moving only when they weren't looking.
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using the rules or logic of.
I sorted the items by category.
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with a change of. In this case, by shows how much something has changed.
Our stock is up by ten percent.
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shows how slowly, or how quickly, someone does something (used in the form "X by X" or "by Xs")
We went through the book page by page.
We crawled forward by inches.
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If you multiply mathx/math by mathy/math, you multiply mathx/math × mathy/math.
Five multiplied by seven is 35.
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If you divide mathx/math by mathy/math, you find how many mathy/maths are in mathx/math.
35 divided by seven is five.
estoppel
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noun
a rule of evidence whereby a person is barred from denying the truth of a fact that has already been settled