The term relegate, which means “exile” or “demote”, was adopted in the 15th century from Latin relegatus, the past participle of the verb relegare with the same meaning. Etymologically, it can be broken down to “send again”, formed by the prefix re- (meaning “again” in Proto-Indo-European) and the root legare, which could signify “send”, “choose”, or “gather”, often used in diplomatic contexts. This root also gives rise to words like delegate, legation, colleague, and legacy. Ultimately, legare traces back to the Proto-Indo-European base leg, signifying “gather” (the origin of words such as legal, apology, elect, lesson, logic, among others). According to Google NGrams, the literary use of relegate peaked in the 1890s and has remained relatively steady since then.
