broker. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

broker

SYLLABICATION:	bro·ker
PRONUNCIATION:	brkr
NOUN:	1. One that acts as an agent for others, as in negotiating contracts, purchases, or sales in return for a fee or commission. 2. A stockbroker. 3. A power broker.
TRANSITIVE VERB:	Inflected forms: bro·kered, bro·ker·ing, bro·kers To arrange or manage as a broker: broker an agreement among opposing factions.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English, from Anglo-Norman brocour, abrocour; akin to Spanish alboroque, ceremonial gift at conclusion of business deal, from Arabic al-barka, the blessing, colloquial variant of al-baraka : al-, the + baraka, blessing, divine favor (from braka, to bless; see brk in Appendix II).
WORD HISTORY:	Giving gifts to one's broker might be justifiable from an etymological point of view because the word broker may be connected through its Anglo-Norman source, brocour, abrocour, with Spanish alboroque, meaning “ceremony or ceremonial gift after the conclusion of a business deal.” If this connection does exist, “business deal” is the notion shared by the Spanish and Anglo-Norman words because brocour referred to the middleman in transactions. The English word broker is first found in Middle English in 1355, several centuries before we find instances of its familiar compounds pawnbroker, first recorded in 1687, and stockbroker, first recorded in 1706.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.