pass the buck

1. To shift blame from oneself to another person: “Passing the buck is a way of life in large bureaucracies.” ( See the buck stops here .)

Idioms and Phrases

Shift responsibility or blame elsewhere, as in She's always passing the buck to her staff; it's time she accepted the blame herself . This expression dates from the mid-1800s, when in a poker game a piece of buckshot or another object was passed around to remind a player that he was the next dealer. It acquired its present meaning by about 1900.