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delegate

B2
verbnoun

Pronunciation

UK

  • /ˈdɛlɪɡət/noun
  • /ˈdɛlɪˌɡeɪt/verb

US

  • /ˈdɛləˌɡeɪt/
  • /ˈdɛləɡət/

Description

Imagine you're the captain of a ship, but you can't steer and navigate and manage the crew all at once! You need to *delegate* – to assign tasks to trusted members of your team. That's what it means to delegate: entrusting someone else with responsibility for a specific job.

A politician might be a *delegate representing their constituents, meaning they're entrusted to act on behalf of the people who elected them. You can also delegate* authority – give someone the power to make decisions. If your boss asks you to handle a project while she's on vacation, she's delegating responsibility to you! It's about trusting others and sharing the workload.

Examples

  1. 1

    Administrative tasks

    She delegated the scheduling to her assistant.

  2. 2

    Workload management

    If your workload is too heavy, learn to delegate instead of doing everything yourself.

  3. 3

    Decision-making

    The company has delegated more decision-making to local teams.

    • Pattern

      delegate + task/power to + person/group

      give them the job or authority to handle it

  4. 4

    Responsibility

    He can delegate the task, but he still has to make sure it gets done.

  5. 5

    Conference representative

    Each branch sent a delegate to the national conference.

  6. 6

    Student representative

    She was elected as the student delegate for the meeting with the principal.

Forms and spellings

4 forms open this card.

Main spelling

  • delegatenounverb

Forms

  • delegatespluralnounverb
  • delegatedpast tenseverbnoun
  • delegating-ing formverbnoun