Scapegoat

Quick meaning: Scapegoat is a noun meaning Someone unfairly blamed or punished for some failure.

Meaning

Someone unfairly blamed or punished for some failure.

More Meanings

1. (transitive, intransitive) To unfairly blame or punish someone for some failure; to make a scapegoat of.
2. In the Mosaic Day of Atonement ritual, a goat symbolically imbued with the sins of the people, and sent out alive into the wilderness while another was sacrificed.

Example Sentences

And Aarõ caſt lottes ouer the .ij. gootes: one lotte for the Lorde, ãd another for a ſcapegoote.

People tend to fear and then to scapegoat ... groups which seem to them to be fundamentally different from their own.

He is making me a scapegoat for his own poor business decisions and the supply chain disruptions caused by the hurricane!

Corbett says Railtrack was under great pressure in the aftermath, as it was the scapegoat even though the signal had been working properly.

Word Forms

• scapegoats
• scapegoating
• scapegoated

Synonyms for scapegoat

Depending on context, synonyms include escapegoat, goat, patsy.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include envoy, minion, emissary, messenger, culprit, butt.

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