Delegate

How to spell delegate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce delegate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does delegate mean?

1. nounA person chosen to represent others, especially at a conference or in negotiations.
2. verbTo entrust a task or authority to another person.

Delegate in a sentence

• noun

  Each delegate received a printed agenda at the registration desk.

• verb

  A good manager learns to delegate routine paperwork to the team.

• noun

  Our union sent one delegate to the national talks.

• verb

  She had to delegate several duties before going on leave.

Where does delegate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin delegare, which combined de-, here meaning 'away' or 'down', with legare, 'to send as a deputy' or 'to commission'. That verb legare in turn grew from lex, legis, the Latin word for 'law', so the underlying idea was of formally assigning a duty under proper authority. English took the word in during the late 1300s and 1400s, first as a verb meaning to entrust a task or power to another person, and the noun for the person so entrusted followed naturally. The same Latin legare lies behind related words such as 'legate' and 'relegate', and the lex root surfaces in 'legal' and 'legislate'. For spelling, it helps to remember the buried leg of legare in the middle, and that the unstressed middle and final vowels both flatten to a faint schwa, which is exactly why the spelling has to be recalled rather than heard.

How the word is built

• de- (down, away)
• leg (from Latin legare: to send or commission)
• -ate (suffix forming verbs and nouns)