{
  "id": "lame-duck.ending",
  "term": "lame duck",
  "sense": "ending",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 16,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "Power whose end others already model, so the walls it sets stop holding before the power itself ends.",
  "folk_gloss": "an official in the last part of a term, after a successor is known",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "power.over",
      "model.representation",
      "others.distinct-entities",
      "set.fix",
      "wall.range-end",
      "stop.action",
      "hold.physical",
      "already.temporal",
      "time.dimension",
      "change.process"
    ],
    "interaction": "Power's walls hold partly because others expect them to keep holding; once others' models place the end, they plan past it, and the walls weaken on the model's schedule rather than the power's.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "power that ends in others' models first",
      "a known end date as a force on the present",
      "walls that depend on expected duration"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "US presidents between a November election and the January inauguration find allies and agencies already working to the successor's plans.",
      "domain": "politics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "power.over",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "power's walls lean on others' models of how long it lasts"
    },
    {
      "id": "status.social",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "status updates lazily; a lame duck is status updated early by a known end"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "lame duck",
    "lame ducks"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-28",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-lame-duck.ending"
}