To relegate means to assign someone or something to a lower position or less important role. When a soccer team gets relegated, it drops down to a lower league after performing poorly. When you relegate old toys to the back of your closet, you're moving them away from the prime spots because you don't play with them anymore.

The word often carries a sense of demotion or downgrading. A student who was once the star player might feel relegated to the bench after missing too many practices. A manager might relegate certain tasks to junior employees, meaning those jobs are considered less important or better suited to less experienced workers.

Relegate involves moving something to reflect its reduced importance or value. The movement itself signals that what's being moved deserves less attention or importance than it once had. If someone says a particular skill has been relegated to history, they mean it's no longer valued or practiced much today. The word often describes decisions made by people in authority about where things or people belong in a hierarchy.