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:
He served on the Bowie City Council before becoming a Maryland state delegate in 2023.
From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026
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
It’s that a woman who has paid to delegate a household task may find herself unexpectedly responsible for supervising its completion.
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2026
We’re underestimating the often-invisible work of people who enable higher-ranking leaders to delegate and get the most out of front-line employees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
The chaplain shook his head, feeling despicably remiss because he did not know how to delegate responsibility and had no initiative, and because he really had been tempted to disagree with the colonel.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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
Under the constitution, Congress has authority over tariffs, which it delegates to the president in specific circumstances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 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
Ceferin informed delegates of his decision at a meeting of all 55 national association chiefs in Berlin.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Some of the delegates were easier than others.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
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
Ethical choices can’t be delegated to a model.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
The licences are issued by the Football Association, though the process itself is delegated to the Premier League.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
It was plausible to assume that the framers delegated to future courts the authority to apply the amendment to new means of invading what the amendment was meant to protect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 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
Call it CEO parenting: treating the modern family as a small enterprise and delegating low-joy tasks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
But he has become good at delegating, too, with all of the backroom team delivering sessions so the squad don't get tired of hearing one voice.
From BBC ● May 19, 2026
People can tell the difference between making a decision and delegating it to a system.
From MarketWatch ● May 6, 2026
This morning Dad has taken the liberty of delegating tasks through passive-aggressive Post-it notes hidden like Easter eggs all over the house.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
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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.
