delegate

From Middle English delegat, from Old French delegat, from Latin dēlēgātus substantivized from the nominative masculine singular of dēlēgātus, the perfect passive participle of dēlēgō (“to send, assign, delegate”), see -ate (noun-forming suffix). See also legate.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dĕlʹĭ-gət, IPA^(key): /ˈdɛlɪɡət/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈdɛlɪɡət/, /ˈdɛləɡət/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈdeləɡət/

delegate (plural delegates)

1. A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy.
2. A representative at a conference, etc.
3. (US) An appointed representative in some legislative bodies.
4. (computing) A type of variable storing a reference to a method with a particular signature, analogous to a function pointer.
   • 2010, Trey Nash, Accelerated C# 2010, page xxvi:

     Historically, all viable frameworks have always provided a mechanism to implement callbacks. C# goes one step further and encapsulates callbacks into callable objects called delegates.

5. A member of a governmental legislature who lacks voting power.

   The house of delegates in apartheid-era South Africa lacked any real voting power.

• See also Thesaurus:deputy

• (computing): function pointer

From the above noun by metanalysis or directly borrowed from Latin dēlēgātus, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dĕlʹĭ-gāt', IPA^(key): /ˈdɛlɪˌɡeɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈdɛlɪˌɡeɪt/, /ˈdɛləˌɡeɪt/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈdeləˌɡæɪt/

delegate (third-person singular simple present delegates, present participle delegating, simple past and past participle delegated)

1. (intransitive) To commit tasks and responsibilities to others, especially subordinates.
   • 2020, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Political Management: The Dance of Government and Politics:

     New Zealand Prime Minister John Key was perceived to delegate effectively. Wayne Mapp, a minister under Key observed he had 'a different style than the traditional style of New Zealand political management. He delegates in the manner of a chief executive, and lets ministers get on with their jobs' (Mapp 2014).

2. (transitive) To commit (a task or responsibility) to someone, especially a subordinate.
   • 2020 July 20, Simon Jenkins, “Britain deserves better than an Old Etonian Donald Trump”, in The Guardian‎:

     The war on Covid-19 was delegated to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, a paralysed NHS and scientists publicly feuding over dud data.

3. (computing, Internet, transitive) (of a subdomain) To give away authority over a subdomain; to allow someone else to create sub-subdomains of a subdomain of one's own.

From Middle English delegat(e) (“delegated”, used as a past participle and adjective), used as the past participle of delegate up until Early Modern English, see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

delegate (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, past participle) delegated
2. (obsolete, adjective) Acting as a delegate, delegated; of, pertaining to a delegate

delegate

1. feminine plural of delegato

delegate f pl

1. feminine plural of delegato

delegate f

1. plural of delegata

delegate

1. inflection of delegare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

dēlēgāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of dēlēgō

delegate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of delegar combined with te