Relegate
Etymology
From Latin “relegare,” to send away or banish, from “re-” (away) and “legare,” to send or depute. In Rome, “relegatio” was a milder exile — removal from the city without loss of citizenship. The word kept that flavor of dignified downgrade rather than outright destruction.
verb · /REL-uh-gayt/
To consign someone or something to a lower or less important position.
What it names
Deliberate demotion — the act of pushing a thing down the order of priority, often quietly.
Example
His objections were relegated to a footnote, technically included but easy to ignore.
Related idea
To relegate is to demote something that stays; to subsume is to absorb it into something larger. Relegating pushes down the hierarchy; subsuming pulls up into a category.