delegate
Americannoun
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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.
And in Maryland, which also held primaries yesterday, a state delegate named Adrian Boafo who got support from pro-Israel and pro-cryptocurrency super PACs claimed the Democratic nomination for a safe blue congressional seat.
From Slate • Jun. 24, 2026
However, the company has since then pivoted to AI, embedding agents that let clients delegate tasks to AI and complete them autonomously.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 3, 2026
Orozco Romero called the DCCC’s decision to back Bains “stupid and morally not OK,” especially since neither of the candidates earned enough delegate support to win the state party endorsement earlier this year.
From Los Angeles Times • May 28, 2026
The French firm offers a software platform with autonomous AI agents to which users can delegate tasks, able to aggregate large quantites of data from varying sources.
From Barron's • May 28, 2026
From this one can extract another notable observation: princes must delegate distasteful tasks to others, while pleasant ones they should keep for themselves.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
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.
