Agent - An espionage agent or spy; a citizen who is recruited by a foreign government to spy on his own country. This term should not be confused with a member of an intelligence service who recruits spies; they are referred to as intelligence officers or more particularly case officers.

Babysitter - Bodyguards.

Circus - The in-house name for MI6, the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service), which collects foreign intelligence. "Circus" refers to the (Fictional) locale of the headquarters in Cambridge Circus, London.

Coat trailing - Denotes behavior that is deliberately provocative, of writing, speech, et cetera.

Comecon - A reference to comecon, an economic organization under the control of the Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of socialist states elsewhere in the world.

Comintern - (1919-43) a communist organization, organized in Moscow in 1919.

The Competition - MI5, the Security Service, the UK's internal counter-espionage and counter-terrorism service, which the Circus also calls "The Security Mob".

The Cousins - The CIS in particular the U.S. intelligences services in general.

Ferrets - Technicians who find and remove hidden microphones, cameras, etc.

Honey-trap - A sexual blackmailing operation.

Housekeepers - The internal auditors and financial disciplinarians of the Circus.

Inquisitors - Interrogators wno debrief Circus intelligence officers and defectors.

Janitors - The Circus headquarters operation staff, including those who watch doors and verify that people entering secure areas are authorized to do so.

Lamplighters - A section which provides surveillance and couriers.

Lotus Eater - Someone who affects amnesia of past covert activities.

Mailfist Job - An espionage job denoting operation with an object of assassination.

Mole - An agent recruited long before he has access to secret material, who subsequently works his way into the target government organization. Le Carre has said this was a term used in the KGB; and equivalent term used in Western intelligence services was sleeper agent.

Mothers - Secretaries and trusted typist serving the senior officers of the Circus.

Nuts & Bolts - The engineering department who develop and manufacture espionage devices.

Pavement Artist - Members of surveillance teams who inconspicuously follow people in public.

Pepper Pot - Probably a reference to a tall tower room, one story higher then the rest of the building probably at a corner.

Persil - The cleanest security category available, used of questionable Foreigners, "Clean as Fabric washed in Persil".

Reptile Fund - The source of money for covert operations, a slush fund.

Scalphunters - Handles assassination, blackmail, burglary, kidnap, etc.; the section was sidelined after Control's dismissal.

Shoemakers - Forgers of documents and the like.

Wranglers - Radio signal analysts and cryptographers; it derives from the wrangler used of Cambridge University math students.