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''surrogate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔
surrogate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
surrogate (plural surrogates)
- A substitute (usually of a person, position or role).
- ✤ Synonyms: see Thesaurus: substitute
- ✤ A mixture of horseradish and mustard often serves as a surrogate for wasabi.
- A person or animal that acts as a substitute for the social or pastoral role of another, such as a surrogate parent.
- (chiefly UK) A deputy for a bishop in granting licences for marriage.
- (US, politics) A politician or person of influence campaigning for a presidential candidate.
- (US law) A judicial officer of limited jurisdiction, who administers matters of probate and intestate succession and, in some cases, adoptions.
- (computing) Any of a range of Unicode codepoints which are used in pairs in UTF-16 to represent characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane.
- (economics) An ersatz good.
- (databases) Ellipsis of surrogate key.
Adjective
surrogate (comparative more surrogate, superlative most surrogate)
- Of, concerning, relating to or acting as a substitute.
Verb
surrogate (third-person singular simple present surrogates, present participle surrogating, simple past and past participle surrogated)
- (transitive) To replace or substitute something with something else; to appoint a successor.
- ✤ Synonyms: deputize, foster, replace, subrogate, substitute
Etymology
From Latin surrogātus, perfect passive participle of surrogō (“ask”); a variant of subrogō, from sub (“under”) + rogō (“ask”).
Pronunciation
Adjective and noun:
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈsʌɹəɡɪt/
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
- (General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈsɝəɡɪt/
- Audio (Texas): 🔊
Verb:
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈsʌɹəɡeɪt/
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
- (General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈsɝəɡeɪt/
Printed 2026-06-28.
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