- intermediary (adj.)
- 1757, "situated between two things;" 1818 as "serving as a mediator;" from French intermédiaire (17c.), from Latin intermedius "that which is between" (see intermediate). As a noun, "one who acts between others" from 1791 (Medieval Latin intermedium also was used as a noun). An earlier adjective was intermedial (1590s).
Intermediary, n., is, even with concrete sense of go-between or middleman or mediator, a word that should be viewed with suspicion & resorted to only when it is clear that every more ordinary word comes short of the need. [Fowler]
