someone who buys large quantities of goods and resells to merchants rather than to the ultimate customers
Used in a Sentence
middleman
How to use middleman in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for middleman.
Editorial note
They could go to the same shop-online and drop-ship model, and cut out a middleman.
Examples9
Definitions3
Parts of speech1
Quick take
someone who buys large quantities of goods and resells to merchants rather than to the ultimate customers
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of middleman gathered in one view.
the performer in the middle of a minstrel line who engages the others in talk
a person who is in a position to give you special assistance; "he used his business contacts to get an introduction to the governor"
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for middleman.
noun
someone who buys large quantities of goods and resells to merchants rather than to the ultimate customers
See also: jobber, wholesaler
noun
the performer in the middle of a minstrel line who engages the others in talk
See also: interlocutor
noun
a person who is in a position to give you special assistance; "he used his business contacts to get an introduction to the governor"
See also: contact
Example sentences
They could go to the same shop-online and drop-ship model, and cut out a middleman.
In this scenario, the consumer and the driver lose due to a corrupt middleman.
Amazon's not a middleman?Of course they are, they just happen to be the biggest one, capable of eating all the others.
The internet's magic is enabling disintermediation -- as the tenant, I was the middleman, and my lease gave him a way to cut me out.
Now, there is a massive Facebook middleman, with all of the decision making power, wedged between Oculus and developers.
If each of those can be aggregated into some other kind of service, where Uber, Lyft, etc. are just providers of payment processing, and possibly some operations expertise, that middleman network will capture all of the value.
You can easily and asynchronously discuss and agree on topics in a transparent manner with one or more participants, again: with an open and decentralized technology, no middleman anywhere.
First there's quality-control: the #1 thing that's going to wreck your relationship with a laundry customer is if you mess up their clothes, and if all the clothes-handling is outsourced, how much can you do to prevent that from happening?And second, if all the value you bring to the table is a thin layer of code over someone else's service, at some point that someone else will just write their own app and cut out the middleman.
Not everybody is Shakespeare, and not everybody has to be Carmack, but that doesn't mean to just leave it to the "experts".Kicking out the ladder under you and being the middleman for what you found in the tree is a game old as dirt, and I think one nice step to help improving the physical world would be to stop repeating its worst mistakes in the "virtual" one./end rant.. no, wait:A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use middleman in a sentence?
They could go to the same shop-online and drop-ship model, and cut out a middleman.
What does middleman mean?
someone who buys large quantities of goods and resells to merchants rather than to the ultimate customers
What part of speech is middleman?
middleman is commonly used as noun.