scapegoat
[ skeyp-goht ]
/ ˈskeɪpˌgoʊt /
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.
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sheathing
the act of a person who encloses something in or as if in a casing or covering
a school giving instruction in one or more of the fine or dramatic arts
a comic character, usually masked, dressed in multicolored, diamond-patterned tights, and carrying a wooden sword or magic wand
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scantlings, scanty, Scanzoni's maneuver, Scapa Flow, scape, scapegoat, scapegoatism, scapegrace, scape wheel, scapha, scapho-
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Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021
Example sentences from the Web for scapegoat
British Dictionary definitions for scapegoat
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
Word Origin for scapegoat
C16: from escape + goat, coined by William Tyndale to translate Biblical Hebrew azāzēl (probably) goat for Azazel, mistakenly thought to mean ``goat that escapes''
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Cultural definitions for scapegoat
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.