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. Lev. 16:8,10,26.
verb (used with object)
to make a scapegoat of: Strike leaders tried to scapegoat foreign competitors.
Words nearby scapegoat
scanty,
scanzoni's maneuver,
scapa flow,
scape,
scape wheel,
scapegoat,
scapegoatism,
scapegrace,
scapewheel,
scapha,
scapho-
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''
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.