fixer

Noun

fixer (plural fixers)

1. A chemical (sodium thiosulfate) used in photographic development that fixes the image in place, preventing further chemical reactions.
   • The fixer removes the undeveloped silver salts from the film, rendering it no longer sensitive to light. Pour the fixer — at a temperature within plus or minus 5° F of the developer's — into the tank, using the amount specified by the tank directions. Agitate with ten inversions initially and then...2003, Bruce Warren, Photography: The Concise Guide, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 69
2. A person who serves as an agent to arrange for a desired result, perhaps by improper and/or unlawful means.
   • The CEO and his fixer are left alone.
     “Our friend,” begins Grimaldi, “Lloyd Hooks. He worries me.”
     Bill Smoke considers this. “Any angles?”
     “He’s got a spring like he’s holding four aces. I don’t like it. Watch him.”2004, David Mitchell, “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery”, in Cloud Atlas, →ISBN, page 127
3. (Philippines, broadly) Someone who is often paid that helps a customer cut through red tape, especially for government processes or applications.
4. (criminal justice) A person who arranges immunity for defendants by tampering with the justice system via bribery or extortion, especially as a business endeavor for profit.
   • A professional bank robber commented on this [a point in the thief's memoir]: 'Perhaps the author means by this that the fixer with whom he is acquainted works only on crimes not involving violence. It is true that there are specialists even in the fix line, and a man who has an in [in =...1937, Edwin H. (ed) Sutherland with Conwell, Chic (pseudonym), The Professional Thief: by a Professional Thief. Annotated and Interpreted by Edwin H. Sutherland, Chicago: University of Chicago Press...
5. A person who assists foreign journalists in volatile countries, often providing interpretation, personal connections, and transportation services.
   • Yet at the same time, this is also the source of what journalists see as one of the major risks involved in dependence on the fixer: the fixer may determine, to some extent, what the journalist sees. It is at this point that differences between journalists become apparent in the interviews – they...2007, Myriam Salama-Carr, Translating and Interpreting Conflict, Rodopi, →ISBN, page 25
6. (US) A fixer-upper.
7. (slang) A drug dealer or user.
   • He'd say things like, “Now, I don’t want you in Harlem!” He was afraid I'd meet the wrong people in Harlem; fixers, junkies, people like that.1969 October 27, Lew Alcindor, Jack Olsen, “My Story”, in Sports Illustrated, volume 31, number 18, →ISSN, page 90