middle-man

On the coast, the agent of the trader or the middle-man awaited the captive.

This difference between the producer and the middle-man may be continually observed elsewhere.

Since you have made me a middle-man, since you have forced me into the fish trade, I must have my profits like anybody else.

In that case, Boni and Liveright will be happy to act as middle-man and obtain the books that are desired.

To exclude the "middle-man," the King was driven to recognise the absolute dominion of the individual over his own possessions.

He is forced, therefore, to have constant recourse to the middle-man, who makes him pay handsomely at every turn.

The sound of higher wages is tempting, but what I hope to live to see one day is the middle-man done away with.

It is the middle-man who grows rich grasping on either side, and who spend their money in eating and drinking.

Everything, or at least nearly everything, is done for them, either by their relations or through the agency of a middle-man.

But the early use of the word in the sense of middle-man points to contamination with some other word of different meaning.