Delegate

//ˈdɛlɪɡət// adj, name, noun, verb

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    delegated not-comparable, obsolete, participle, past
  2. 2
    Acting as a delegate, delegated; of, pertaining to a delegate adjective, not-comparable, obsolete
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A locality in the Snowy Monaro council area, south eastern New South Wales, Australia.
Noun
  1. 1
    A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy.
  2. 2
    a person appointed or elected to represent others wordnet
  3. 3
    A representative at a conference, etc.
  4. 4
    An appointed representative in some legislative bodies. US
  5. 5
    A type of variable storing a reference to a method with a particular signature, analogous to a function pointer.

    "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."

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    A member of a governmental legislature who lacks voting power.

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

Verb
  1. 1
    To commit tasks and responsibilities to others, especially subordinates. intransitive

    "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. 2
    give an assignment to (a person) to a post, or assign a task to (a person) wordnet
  3. 3
    To commit (a task or responsibility) to someone, especially a subordinate. transitive

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

  4. 4
    transfer power to someone wordnet
  5. 5
    (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. Internet, transitive

Etymology

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

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

Etymology 3

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.

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