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Meaning of delegate in English

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delegate
noun [ C ]

UK & /ˈdel.ɪ.ɡət / US & /ˈdel.ə.ɡət /

! )

C1

a person chosen or elected by a group

to speak, vote, etc. for them, especially
at a meeting:

• Delegates have voted in favour of the

motion.
• Each union elects several delegates to
the annual conference.

* More examples

• Our delegates have been

mandated to vote against the
proposal at the conference.
• The delegates trailed back into the
conference room for the afternoon
session.
• They've chartered a plane to take
delegates to the conference.
• With one accord, the delegates
walked out of the conference.
• The conference delegates were
transfixed by her speech.

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delegate
verb

UK & /ˈdel.ɪ.ɡeɪt / US & /ˈdel.ə.ɡeɪt /

delegate verb (GIVE)

! )

C2 [ I or T ]

to give a particular job, duty, right, etc.

to someone else so that they do it for
you:

• As a boss you have to delegate

(responsibilities to your staff).
• Authority to make financial decisions
has been delegated to a special
committee.

! SMART Vocabulary: related words and

phrases

delegate verb (CHOOSE PERSON)

! )

[ T + obj + to infinitive ]

to choose or elect someone to speak,

vote, etc. for a group, especially at a
meeting:

• A group of four teachers were

delegated to represent their colleagues
at the union conference.

! SMART Vocabulary: related words and

phrases

(Definition of delegate from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's

Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

delegate | AMERICAN DICTIONARY

delegate
noun [ C ]

US & /ˈdel·ɪ·ɡət /

! )

a person chosen or elected by a group

to represent the group, esp. at a
meeting:

• Each state chooses delegates to the

national convention.

delegate
verb

US & /ˈdel·ɪˌɡeɪt /

delegate verb (GIVE)

! )

[ I/T ]

to give a job or responsibility to

someone in a lower position instead of
doing it yourself:

• Personnel matters made him

[T ]

uncomfortable, and he increasingly

delegated them to others.

delegate verb (CHOOSE)

! )

[T ]

to choose someone to represent a

group:

• Four teachers were delegated to

represent the school at the conference.

(Definition of delegate from the Cambridge Academic Content

Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

delegate | BUSINESS ENGLISH

delegate
noun [ C ] • MEETINGS

UK & /ˈdelɪɡət / US &

! )

a person who is chosen or elected by

a group to speak or vote for it,
especially at a meeting:

• More than 1,000 delegates attended

the three-day conference.
• a delegate to a meeting/conference

" $

delegate
verb

UK & /ˈdelɪɡeɪt / US &

! )

[ I or T ] • MANAGEMENT

to give a particular job, duty, etc. to

someone else so that they do it for
you:

• He was always overburdened with too

many trivial tasks because he found it
impossible to delegate.
• delegate
authority/powers/responsibility The
Board may delegate its authority to any
duly appointed committee.
• delegate sth to sb A manufacturer can
delegate some or all of its overseas
operations to an export house.

! )

[T ] • MEETINGS

to choose or elect someone to speak

or vote for a group, especially at a
meeting:

• delegate sb to do sth The company

director, who prepared their
submission, cannot be here and has
delegated her deputy to present it for
her.

(Definition of delegate from the Cambridge Business English

Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

EXAMPLES of delegate

delegate
The principal researcher recorded all the
comments as written by the delegates.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Presidential nominations are won by

accumulating delegates from a sequential
series of state-based primaries and caucuses.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Since 1996, more than 70 per cent of

delegates were chosen by this date (mean
0.58, maximum 0.78).
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

In 1912, however, authorization for export was

delegated to a trading company for a fixed
payment.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Thirdly, it must identify the main actors upon

which these powers are delegated because
their characteristics are likely to explain
choices of delegation too.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Finally, all i development planning agencies

and collegial bodies would be composed of
members of social movement organisations
and government delegates.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

In comparison, we are more focused on

learning the action models, where planning will
still be delegated to a planner for new
problems.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Besides the pleasure and pride derived from

parades, conference sessions gave delegates
the opportunity to share ideas and to further
linkages between communities.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Plenty of time was allowed after the

presentation of the paired papers providing the
opportunity for delegates to actively respond to
the discussion.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Members of authorizing committees have

delegated to members of appropriations
committees the power (subject to floor votes)
to limit spending.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

There was some overlap in that delegates

found there was too much traffic and
insufficient parking.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

One steering group member was responsible

for timekeeping and moving delegates on to
the next appropriate workshop.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

Nevertheless, the central manager must deal

with the task of combining delegated portfolio
subsets into an efficient centralized portfolio.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

However, an arrangement that optimally

delegates the monitoring role does exist and it
resembles the special supervisory roles
associated with central banking.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

The basic idea is, that the user delegates a

task to a virtual communication assistant which
is visualized as a life-like character.
From the Cambridge English Corpus +

See all examples of delegate

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the
web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the
opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge
University Press or its licensors.

Translations of delegate

in Chinese (Traditional)

（尤指會議的）代表, 給, （把…）委派
（給…），（把…）委託（給…）…
See more

in Chinese (Simplified)

（尤指会议的）代表, 给, （把…）委派
（给…），（把…）委托（给…）…
See more

in Spanish

delegado, -a, delegar…

See more

in Portuguese

representante, delegar, delegado…

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