Relegate

Relegate

Verb · /ˈrɛlɪɡeɪt/ · to assign to a lower rank, position, or category; to demote or transfer to a less important role

Definition

To relegate means to move something or someone down — to a lower position, a lesser category, a more distant or less important place. A manager is relegated to a junior role. A hypothesis is relegated to the footnotes. In British football, a club is relegated from the Premier League to the Championship when its performance is not good enough to remain. The word carries a sense of formal, often permanent downward reclassification.

Origin

From Latin relegare — re- (back, away) + legare (to send, to dispatch). To relegate is to send away — to dispatch someone or something to a lesser place. The Romans used relegation as a formal punishment: exile, removal from Rome, banishment to the provinces. The modern sense of demotion and downgrading descends directly from that Roman administrative act.