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scapegoat
[ skeyp-goht ]
noun
- 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.
verb (used with object)
- to make a scapegoat of:
Strike leaders tried to scapegoat foreign competitors.
scapegoat
/ ˈskeɪpˌɡəʊt /
noun
- 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
verb
- tr to make a scapegoat of
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.
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Word History and Origins
Origin of scapegoat1
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Word History and Origins
Origin of scapegoat1
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Example Sentences
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.
And, 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.
He felt himself "accursed by all," the "scapegoat on whom all the faults of Israel will be heaped with a curse."
For a time Tommy Kerr, who had been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little permanent help.
The squatter had been the scapegoat upon which had been heaped the sins of a girl no one had thought capable of doing wrong.
It came to nothing, but gave him as a scapegoat to the revilings of those with whom soldiers had become so unpopular.
He pulled the unresisting scapegoat out of his chair and hustled him to the rear of the office.
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