From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsurrogatesur‧ro‧gate1 /ˈsʌrəɡeɪt, -ɡət $ ˈsɜːr-/ adjective [only before noun] REPLACEa surrogate person or thing is one that takes the place of someone or something else William was acting as a surrogate father for his brother’s son.
Examples from the Corpus
surrogate• His dancers were his family, surrogate children whom he fed, educated and drove mercilessly as artists.• Both his sense of need and his surrogate conscience link him however tenuously, with a social universe.• They merely suffered from unresolved Oedipal complexes, and were attacking universities as a surrogate father.• The old couple across the street were like surrogate grandparents to me.• We became a surrogate mirror reflecting back our approval.• Regional governments have started to issue their own kinds of surrogate money.• Girls are fascinated by people and treat their toys as surrogate people.surrogate father• Joseph Schreider was a kind of ... surrogate father.• They merely suffered from unresolved Oedipal complexes, and were attacking universities as a surrogate father.• His surrogate father figure was killed.surrogatesurrogate2 noun [countable] 1 a person or thing that takes the place of someone or something elsesurrogate for Bright-light therapy is used as a surrogate for sunshine.2 a surrogate motherExamples from the Corpus
surrogate• Deaver also appeared to act as a messenger between the First lady and her husband, and sometimes even as a surrogate.• As Dole and Kemp headed across the country, the team of surrogates was making its maiden voyage in California.• Civilization itself, in fact, is a pathological surrogate for unconscious infantile disappointments.• The President's surrogates have been campaigning for him nonstop.• This special class acted as their surrogates for over 400 years.• But I have to resist trying to make them surrogates of me.• Then, one night when his white surrogate left the studio, Winslow read part of his own Script on the air.Origin surrogate2 (1500-1600) Latin past participle of surrogare “to ask in place of another”, from sub- ( → SUB-) + rogare “to ask” 