scapegoat

[skeyp-goht]

noun

1. a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place.

2. 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)

1. to make a scapegoat of.

   Strike leaders tried to scapegoat foreign competitors.

scapegoat

/ ˈskeɪpˌɡəʊt /

noun

1. a person made to bear the blame for others

2. 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

1. (tr) to make a scapegoat of

scapegoat

1. 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of scapegoat¹

First recorded in 1520–30; scape ² + goat

Word History and Origins

Origin of scapegoat¹

C16: from _escape + _goat , coined by William Tyndale to translate Biblical Hebrew azāzēl (probably) goat for Azazel, mistakenly thought to mean ``goat that escapes''

Example Sentences

Most nights, that would make him the scapegoat.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The overwhelming sentiment of the 10 teenagers is that immigrants are being scapegoated.

Read more on BBC

Tom Hayes launched a legal claim for malicious prosecution against the Swiss banking giant, claiming he was the bank's "hand-picked scapegoat" in one of the biggest scandals of the 2008 financial crisis.

Read more on BBC

Haney said the federal government was using his client as a “scapegoat.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The actor claimed he had been made a celebrity scapegoat because of the intense media pressure on local authorities to solve the high-profile case.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• fall guy