take the rap

Cultural  

1. To be punished or blamed, especially when innocent: “The crime boss arranged it so that his underling took the rap for the insurance scam.”

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take the rap Idioms  

1. Be punished or blamed for something, as in I don't want to take the rap for Mary, who forgot to mail the check in time, or Steve is such a nice guy that he's always taking the rap for his colleagues. This slangy idiom originally used rap in the sense of “a criminal charge,” a usage still current. By the mid-1900s it was also used more broadly.

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Example Sentences

Staunton told the Sunday Times that when he was sacked Badenoch had told him: "Someone's got to take the rap."

From BBC • Feb. 19, 2024

One of the suspects reconsiders the possibility that his confederate will cash in on the promise of a deal, leaving him alone to take the rap.

From Salon • Dec. 5, 2020

Slip and the gang take the rap for a robbery they did not commit.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 3, 2020

But an attorney for Swearingen denies such a plot exists with a second death-row inmate, Anthony Shore, and Shore has not tried to take the rap for Swearingen’s convictions.

From Reuters • Oct. 22, 2017

The last time I’d seen him, he was going to take the rap for his love.

From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez