delegate
Americannoun
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delegates
plural
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a person designated to act for or represent another or others; deputy; representative, as in a political convention.
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(formerly) the representative of a Territory in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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a member of the lower house of the state legislature of Maryland, Virginia, or West Virginia.
noun
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a person chosen or elected to act for or represent another or others, esp at a conference or meeting
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government a representative of a territory in the US House of Representatives
verb
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to give or commit (duties, powers, etc) to another as agent or representative; depute
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(tr) to send, authorize, or elect (a person) as agent or representative
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(tr) to assign (a person owing a debt to oneself) to one's creditor in substitution for oneself
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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delegateenoun
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delegatornoun
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nondelegatenoun
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predelegatenoun
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subdelegatenoun
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redelegateverb (used with object)
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subdelegateverb (used with object)
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delegableadjective
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undelegatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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delegatesimple
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delegatessimple
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have delegatedperfect
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has delegatedperfect
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am delegatingprogressive
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are delegatingprogressive
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is delegatingprogressive
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have been delegatingperfect progressive
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has been delegatingperfect progressive
Past
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delegatedsimple
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had delegatedperfect
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was delegatingprogressive
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were delegatingprogressive
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had been delegatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of delegate
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English (past participle) delegat, from Medieval Latin dēlēgātus, noun use of past participle of dēlēgāre “to assign,” equivalent to dē- de- + lēgātus “deputed”; see legate
Explanation
Delegate lends an official air to passing off your work. If you don't like cleaning the bathroom, you can try to delegate that task to your little brother. A delegate is also an elected official, or the person who is doing the task you delegated them to do. In presidential primaries in the United States, you do not vote for a candidate, you vote for a delegate whose job it is to vote for that candidate at a convention. Be careful with how you pronounce the end of the word. The elected official is pronounced DE-lə-git whereas delegate as a verb should be DE-lə-gāt.
Vocabulary lists containing delegate
The Bill of Rights
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List 4
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U.S. Government Lingo
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It is rare to find a policy approach like this, said Patrick Hope, a Democratic state delegate who spearheaded Virginia’s law.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026
The delegate requested anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations.
From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026
In real life, he prefers to delegate the unpleasant task to an underling.
From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026
When you delegate to a person, your own burden can lighten, because part of your responsibility has gone elsewhere.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
He told me that before his heart attack he had been asked to go as a delegate to the Zionist General Council that was to meet in Palestine during the coming summer.
From "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok
After the war Gouverneur Morris was tapped by Pennsylvania to be one of its delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
Late in the convention, the delegates adopted the additional phrase “or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” in important part to expand the reach of impeachable corruption beyond technical bribery.
From Slate ● Oct. 30, 2026
Telling delegates she was "not scared to wade in", she called for more support for members of the public as well as police officers who step in to stop wrongdoing.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026
Yet it’s unclear how many were able to attend, with some delegates forced to drive hours across the desert from Bahrain or Jordan to reach Riyadh.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
“I am not retiring now because I feel unable, mentally or physically, to do the necessary work,” she told the delegates at the meeting.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
Seabright found that the revision made no meaningful difference because those powers could not have been delegated to Essayli in the first place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026
Many try three of the steps, then give up, Steve said, often because the top boss has delegated the project to, say, someone in human resources.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
The licences are issued by the Football Association, though the process itself is delegated to the Premier League.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
That hasn’t kept him from abusing other trade powers delegated by Congress.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
So finally they delegated me to tell him that he needed to take a bath more often.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Wasn’t it true, a juror asked, that he had taken to delegating tasks to subordinates in recent years?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
He joked that by delegating Vance to sign it and take on negotiations, the vice president can get some of the blame if it goes wrong.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026
"Militaries adopt AI to speed up processes such as target identification. But delegating life-and-death decisions to machines poses profound ethical and human rights risks," said Patrick Wilcken of Amnesty International.
From BBC ● May 6, 2026
People can tell the difference between making a decision and delegating it to a system.
From MarketWatch ● May 6, 2026
He was delegating the red rubber bands to Laney when his mom called to him from the kitchen.
From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
