[Ads-l] "double agent" = "[single] agent" ?

[Laurence Horn]

Inflation, like those medium-sized “colossal olives”.

Checking the first few cites on Google, I find:

an agent who pretends to act as a spy for one country or organization while in fact acting on behalf of an enemy.  

an employee of a secret intelligence service, whose primary purpose is to spy on a different target organization, but who, in fact, is a member of the target organization

a spy pretending to serve one government while actually serving another

...but also this more complicated one, requiring the involvement of three different countries/governments:

a person employed by a government to discover secret information about enemy countries, but who is really working for one of these enemy countries
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/double-agent

Still, none that conform to Maddow’s use.

LH



> On Mar 16, 2018, at 2:19 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
> 
> Two nights ago, the usually articulate and precise Rachel Maddow several times referred to Russians accused or convicted of espionage on behalf of Britain or the US, and expelled or executed, as "double agents."
> 
> But aren't they simply "agents"?
> 
> I've always understood a double agent to be an individual who pretends to be spying on country X for the benefit of country Y but is actually betraying country Y to country X --like the character Dominika in Jason Matthew's terrific espionage novel _Red Sparrow_ (don't bother with the movie!). That is, a spy who has been found out and "turned."
> 
> OED's definition of "double agent" I find confusing: "a spy who works on behalf of mutually hostile countries, usually with actual allegiance only to one."
> 
> --Charlie
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org