Meaning & use
relegating
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“relegating” is a form of “relegate”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
verbtransitive
Moving someone or something to a lower, less important position or rank.
Grammar: Takes an object and usually to: relegating chores to the weekend.
Patterns
- relegate someone to something
- relegate something to the background
Relegating her ideas to the end of the agenda made her feel ignored.
He kept relegating the old computer to a corner of the garage.
By relegating safety checks to a minor task, the company took a serious risk.
verbtransitivesportBritish
Moving a sports team down to a lower division because of poor results over a season.
Grammar: Takes a team as object: the league is relegating three clubs.
Patterns
- relegate a team to a division
The league is relegating the bottom three teams at the end of the season.
Losing at home again meant relegating their hopes of staying up.
Word forms
| base form | relegate |
|---|---|
| third person singular | relegates |
| past tense | relegated |
| past participle | relegated |
| -ing form | relegating |
Common combinations
- relegating something to the background
- Relegating family life to the background is a common mistake of busy workers.
- relegating someone to a minor role
- The director was criticized for relegating women to minor roles.
- relegating a club to the second division
- A late goal ended up relegating the club to the second division.
- relegating to history
- Relegating old technology to history happens faster each year.
Synonyms and how they differ
- demoting
- Demoting is used mainly for lowering a person's job rank, while relegating can apply to things, ideas and teams too.
- downgrading
- Downgrading stresses lowering quality or status, and sounds more technical or commercial.
- sidelining
- Sidelining means pushing someone away from the action, whereas relegating places them in a specific lower position.
Opposites
Word family
- relegate verb
- to move to a lower position
- relegation noun
- the act of moving down, especially a team
- relegated adjective
- moved to a lower position
Commonly confused: relegating or delegating?
relegating vs delegating
Delegating means giving a task or authority to someone else, which is not the same as moving something to a lower rank.
Practice
Choose the best word: The manager was accused of ___ junior staff to boring paperwork while he took the interesting projects.
Choose one answer.
Relegating to means pushing into an unimportant position. Delegating is tempting but means passing on responsibility, not demeaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “relegating”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.