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:
“I’ve learned to delegate and let other people take over.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
Francisco Martin, a government delegate in Madrid, described the fires as "undoubtedly the largest fire in the history of the Madrid region".
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
As AI begins building AI, the country that trusts its models most can delegate the most and compound the fastest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
The Spanish government's delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martin, seized upon a forecast dip in temperatures Saturday to say "there is a real opportunity now to tackle this fire with some guarantee of success".
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
“You don’t know how to delegate responsibility,” Corporal Whitcomb informed him sullenly.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
It was Ghana that tabled the UN resolution, and in June, a summit on reparations was held in its capital, Accra, with delegates from around 80 countries, who concluded that recompense was long overdue.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Cellphones were banned from the ceremony, bags were closely screened and delegates put through a metal detector by a sizable security force.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026
Kim needed at least two thirds of the 1,000 delegates attending the labor federation’s Oakland convention.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
The delegates piled into a ballroom at New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, FIFA’s de facto headquarters for the tournament, as if it were an old-money wedding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Among the delegates was a “shaggy man with an unprepossessing manner and a crooked smile,” whom American Kremlinologists identified promptly as Semyon Tsarapkin, one of Moscow’s craftiest diplomatic negotiators.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
The position is usually delegated to a junior minister, the paper explains.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Lunetta pointed out that hospitals "have repetitive tasks" which "could be delegated to a good robot".
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 2026
Rather than saddle an existing agency with additional duties, Congress delegated rulemaking and enforcement power to a private corporation known as the Horseracing Authority.
From Slate ● Jun. 12, 2026
Its investment committee exercises fiduciary authority delegated by the legislature.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
“What is it, Gus? Something you didn’t handle correctly? Some authority you delegated to somebody else?”
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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
He has also espoused a more collegiate style of governance, delegating some particularly sensitive topics to his senior clergy.
From Barron's ● 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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
