relegation
Pronunciation
Etymology
It is inherited from Middle English relegacioun, also religacioun,[2] partly borrowed from Middle French relegacion, recorded in French from before 1374, and partly directly borrowed from Latin relēgātiō (“banishment”),[3][2][4][5] a term of Roman law and later of church law.[6] The Latin noun is formed on relēgātus, the past participle of relēgō (“to send away, remove, banish”),[3][4][7][6] from re- (“back”) and lēgō (“to send as a deputy, send with a commission”).[6][8][9] In later use the English noun was also felt as relegate with the suffix -ion.[3] relegació and relegazione are recorded from the 14th century.[3]
Earliest recorded meaning
Banishment or exile: about 1425, in John Lydgate's Troy Book.[2][3] Etymonline dates the word only from the 1580s.[6]
Semantic evolution
In Roman history relegation was a milder form of banishment: the person was sent to a place at a distance from Rome, often for a limited time, without losing property or civil rights.[3][5][7] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as exile or judicial banishment.[10] From 1708 it could mean sending a person, and in extended use a thing, away to some place,[3][11] following the verb, which from 1790 meant placing someone in an inferior position.[6][12] In the 19th century it also meant referring a matter to someone else to deal with (1844), a sense now rare.[3][5] The sense most common today, in sport, is the demotion of a team to a lower division of a league, first recorded in 1894 in The Times.[3][11] In football it is decided by the team's final position in the league table.[3]
Timeline
- c. 1425 – banishment, exile, in Lydgate's Troy Book.[2][3]
- 1580s – first date in Etymonline.[6]
- 1708 – sending a person or thing away to a place.[3]
- 1844 – referring a matter to another person or body.[3]
- 1894 – demotion of a team to a lower division.[3]
Meanings
Noun
- The demotion of a sports team to a lower division of a league, especially in football: The club escaped relegation on the last day of the season.[3][5]
- The act of relegating or the state of being relegated; removal to a less important place or position.[7][3]
- The handing over of a matter to another person or body to deal with.[7][5][3]
- Banishment or exile; in Roman law, a mild form of banishment that did not take away property or civil rights.[7][3][10]
Related words
- relegate
- legate
- delegate
- legation
References
- ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
- ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
- ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
- ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins