A sending away; a putting into commission; the assignment of a debt to another: the intrusting another with a general power to act for the good of those who depute him.
At common law. The transfer of authority by one person to another; the act of making or commissioning a delegate.
The whole body of delegates or representatives sent to a convention or assembly from one district, place, or political unit are collectively spoken of as a “delegation.”
In the civil law. A species of novation which consists in the change of one debtor for another, when he who is indebted substitutes a third person who obligates himself in his stead to the creditor, so that the first debtor is acquitted and his obligation extinguished, and the creditor contents himself with the obligation of the second debtor. Delegation is essentially distinguished from any other species of novation, in this: that the former demands the consent of all three parties, but the latter that only of the two parties to the new debt. 1 Domat,