Other forms: represented, representing, represents
To represent is to speak or stand for somebody else officially. Represent a client, represent the company, represent your country.
A lawyer represents a client, an MP represents a constituency, an athlete represents a country — the common thread is authority to act in their place. It also means to be a symbol of something: the dove represents peace, the figures represent a rise of ten per cent. And it means to describe something in a particular way: he represented himself as an expert. Note representative, both the person and the adjective, and representation.
1verbrepresentTo speak or act officially for somebody else.
“She represented the family at every hearing.”
2verbsymbolTo be a symbol or sign of something.
“The green line represents the second year.”
3verbdescribeTo describe something in a particular way.
“He represented the delay as somebody else's fault.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
represent is a standing for something.
Latin repraesentare is re-, again, plus praesentare, to present — to make present again. A representative literally makes an absent person present, which is the whole theory of parliament in one verb.
Latin
repraesentō
Old French
représenter
English, today
represent
From Old French représenter, from Latin repraesentō. Displaced native Old English spelian (“to represent”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA