A person who buys goods from a producer and sells them to customers, taking a profit in between.
From 'middle' (from Old English 'middel') plus 'man.' The term arose during the development of commerce to describe merchants who operated between primary producers and end consumers.
Middlemen can feel like they're just taking a cut, but they actually solve a real problem: farmers can't efficiently sell one apple to each customer, so middlemen aggregate and distribute, creating the whole grocery system!
Historically defaulted to 'man' for neutral intermediary roles; reinforces assumption that default agent is male.
Use 'intermediary' or 'go-between' for inclusive phrasing.
["intermediary","go-between","broker"]
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