Definition of RELEGATE

Choose the Right Synonym for relegate

commit, entrust, confide, consign, relegate mean to assign to a person or place for a definite purpose. commit may express the general idea of delivering into another's charge or the special sense of transferring to a superior power or to a special place of custody. committed the felon to prison entrust implies committing with trust and confidence. the president is entrusted with broad powers confide implies entrusting with great assurance or reliance. confided complete control of my affairs to my attorney consign suggests removing from one's control with formality or finality. consigned the damaging notes to the fire relegate implies a consigning to a particular class or sphere often with a suggestion of getting rid of. relegated to an obscure position in the company

Did You Know?

Originally relegate meant "to send into exile, banish". So when you relegate an old sofa to the basement, you're sending it to home-decorating Siberia. When confronted with a matter that no one really wants to face, a chief executive may relegate it to a committee "for further study", which may manage to ignore it for years. It may be annoying to read a newspaper article about a pet project and find that your own contributions have been relegated to a short sentence near the end.

Examples of relegate in a Sentence

The bill has been relegated to committee for discussion. courtiers and generals who incurred the emperor's disfavor were soon relegated to the farther reaches of the empire

Recent Examples on the Web

European soccer leagues boot out their worst clubs by relegating them to a lower division. — WSJ, "Our Insane Ideas to Save Baseball," 25 Oct. 2018 The rest of the F-22 fleet lacks the full range of combat capability and is largely relegated to training duties. — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, "More Than a Dozen F-22s May Have Been Damaged or Destroyed by Hurricane Michael," 15 Oct. 2018 Michael Nagle—Bloomberg via Getty Images Coca-Cola relegated their Diet Coke lime and cherry flavors for sale only on Amazon earlier this year. — Mckenna Moore, Fortune, "Diet Coke Just Dropped Its Lime Flavor. Cherry Could Be Next To Go," 3 July 2018 Gridlock in Washington often relegates proposals like this to the political dustbin. — Joel Klein, WSJ, "The IRS Can Save American Health Care," 1 July 2018 But after failing to adapt to a pro offense and, more notably, being painted as a locker room pariah in New York, Smith now seems relegated to journeyman status. 13. Kellen Clemens (Jets, No. 49 in 2006): Noticing a green-and-white theme? — Nate Davis, USA TODAY, "Ranking NFL's second-round QBs since 2000: Is Christian Hackenberg biggest bust?," 14 June 2018 Trump is referring here to the tens of thousands of people Kim has relegated to labor camps. — Chris Cillizza, CNN, "The 49 wildest quotes from Donald Trump's Singapore press conference," 12 June 2018 In 2011, the center-right government of Mariano Rajoy—which lost a vote of confidence last week—relegated science to a state secretariat under the economy minister. — Elisabeth Pain, Science | AAAS, "Go for launch: A former astronaut become Spain's science minister," 7 June 2018 In fact, the playwright goes even further by relegating the defining events of that life mostly to between-scenes interludes. — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, "'Mary Page Marlowe': Theater Review," 13 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'relegate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.