scapegoat
a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place.
Chiefly Biblical. a goat let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on its head. Leviticus 16:8,10,26.
to make a scapegoat of: Strike leaders tried to scapegoat foreign competitors.
Origin of scapegoat
1Words Nearby scapegoat
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use scapegoat in a sentence
Growing up in the nineties, I saw California governor Pete Wilson attack immigrants with rhetoric that depicted them as scapegoats for America’s social and economic problems and with public policies like the infamous Proposition 187.
A resurgence or continuation of the pandemic may also result in leaders seeking to distract their people the old fashioned way, by finding scapegoats and through nationalism.
The Pandemic Is a $50 Billion Test That Rich Countries Are Failing | David Rothkopf | July 22, 2021 | The Daily BeastAfter Valencia left, she worried that the city’s response to Congress over facial recognition two years prior would come back to haunt her — and she feared becoming the scapegoat.
San Diego Held Back Materials Sought by Congress on Facial Recognition | Jesse Marx | May 3, 2021 | Voice of San DiegoThey’ve been a frequent scapegoat during economic woes and disease outbreaks, and in wartime propaganda.
Asian American businesses are defending themselves against rise in anti-Asian violence | Tracy Jan | March 25, 2021 | Washington PostThe combination of affective polarization, racism, inequality, isolation and mistrust has radicalized a meaningful minority of the nation, making it easy to find scapegoats and boogeymen.
Our Radicalized Republic | Maggie Koerth (maggie.koerth-baker@fivethirtyeight.com) | January 25, 2021 | FiveThirtyEight
They are vouching for Shadman, saying he is a scapegoat of a shoddy investigation.
Smith, the current police chief, called Lee a “scapegoat” who was “thrown to the wolves” to satisfy political critics.
Florida Cops on What Ferguson Can Learn From Trayvon | Chris Francescani | November 20, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAnd, as in countless other countries (Uganda, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria), LGBT people are a convenient scapegoat.
Contending that he was being used as a scapegoat, Palmer asked for a trade.
Instead, as the Democratic party proliferates a “war on women,” they choose Akin as the sole scapegoat.
It Sounds Like Todd Akin Only Wants to Talk About Rape | Gideon Resnick | July 17, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTHe felt himself "accursed by all," the "scapegoat on whom all the faults of Israel will be heaped with a curse."
The Life of Mazzini | Bolton KingFor a time Tommy Kerr, who had been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little permanent help.
Mushroom Town | Oliver OnionsThe squatter had been the scapegoat upon which had been heaped the sins of a girl no one had thought capable of doing wrong.
Tess of the Storm Country | Grace Miller WhiteIt came to nothing, but gave him as a scapegoat to the revilings of those with whom soldiers had become so unpopular.
Thirty Years in Australia | Ada CambridgeHe pulled the unresisting scapegoat out of his chair and hustled him to the rear of the office.
Blow The Man Down | Holman Day
British Dictionary definitions for scapegoat
/ (ˈskeɪpˌɡəʊt) /
a person made to bear the blame for others
Old Testament a goat used in the ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16); it was symbolically laden with the sins of the Israelites and sent into the wilderness to be destroyed
(tr) to make a scapegoat of
Origin of scapegoat
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for scapegoat
A person or group that is made to bear blame for others. According to the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement, a priest would confess all the sins of the Israelites over the head of a goat and then drive it into the wilderness, symbolically bearing their sins away.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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