Word.ws English Dictionary

three-letter agency

three-letter agency noun: any intelligence agency of the United States federal government.

Noun

three-letter agency (plural three-letter agencies)

  1. (US, humorous) Any intelligence agency of the United States federal government.
  2. (US, broadly, humorous) Any intelligence agency, regardless of nationality or allegiance.

Forms of three-letter agency

pluralthree-letter agencies
alternative formthree letter agency

Origin of three-letter agency

From the initialisms of major intelligence agencies in the United States, such as the CIA, FBI and NSA.

Questions about three-letter agency

What does three-letter agency mean?
Three-letter agency means any intelligence agency of the United States federal government.
What part of speech is three-letter agency?
Three-letter agency is a noun.
What is the plural of three-letter agency?
The plural of three-letter agency is three-letter agencies.

Words near three-letter agency in the dictionary

  1. three-legged mares
  2. three-legged race
  3. three-legged races
  4. three-leggeds
  5. three-letter agencies
  6. three-letter agency
  7. three-line whip
  8. three-line whips
  9. three-lips
  10. three-martini lunch
  11. three-martini lunches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: three-letter agency (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “three-letter agency.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/three-letter_agency. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.