emissary

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You may swim this summer, but is the past tense "swum" or
"swam?" Check out our Concise Dictionary of English Usage.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?conusg.htm&6
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The Word of the Day for July 21 is: 

emissary   \EM-uh-sair-ee\   noun
    *1 : one designated as the agent of another : representative 
     2 : a secret agent 

Example sentence:
     The company appointed an emissary to attend the conference and make 
decisions about the upcoming events.

Did you know?
     An emissary is often a person who is sent somewhere in order to act as a 
representative. The key in that sentence is "sent"; "emissary" derives from 
Latin "emissus," the past participle of the verb "emittere," meaning "to send 
out." "Emissary" first appeared in print in English in 1607, less than ten 
years after the arrival of another "emittere" descendant: "emit." In addition, 
"emittere" itself comes from Latin "mittere" ("to send"), which is an ancestor 
of many English words, including "admit," "commit," "mission," 
"permit," "premise," "promise," "omit," and "submit."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.