What does .delegate mean in groovy?

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The delegate of a closure is an object that is used to resolve references that cannot be resolved within the body of the closure itself. If your example was written like this instead: def say = { def m = 'hello' println m } say.delegate = [m:2] say() It prints 'hello', because m can be resolved within the closure. However, when m is not defined within the closure, def say = { println m } say.delegate = [m:2] say() the delegate is used to resolve the reference, and in this case the delegate is a Map that maps mto 2. 출처 - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8120949/what-does-delegate-mean-in-groovy