The two verbs, delegate and depute seem to be very similar. I am not a native English speaker, though, when I looked carefully at the definitions and example sentences in the dictionary for the two words, I was not able to tell the difference.
The definitions and the example sentences for delegate and depute according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary are as follows.
delegate v.
[intransitive, transitive] to give part of your work, power or authority to somebody in a lower position than you, e.g. "Some managers find it difficult to delegate."
[transitive] delegate somebody to do something [usually passive] to choose somebody to do something, e.g. "I've been delegated to organize the Christmas party."
depute v.
- depute somebody to do something [often passive] (formal) to give somebody else the authority to represent you or do something for you, e.g. "He was deputed to put our views to the committee."
I see that the first definition of delegate described above is different than depute in three respects:
- delegate can be used as intransitive.
- delegate can take the delegated task as the direct object, whereas depute only can take the person as its object.
- When a task is delegated to a person, the person is in a lower position than the person who delegated it, whereas there is no bound like that for depute.
But when seeing the second definition of delegate, the differences I listed above totally disappear. To check whether there is any difference, I can transpose the verbs in the two example sentences.
(original) Sentence A: I've been delegated to organize the Christmas party.
Sentence B: I've been deputed to organize the Christmas party.
(original) Sentence C: He was deputed to put our views to the committee.
Sentence D: He was delegated to put our views to the committee.
When the sentence A and C are changed into the sentence B and D, is there no difference and error?
Thank you.
