Scapegoat

Noun

 * 1) In the Mosaic Day of Atonement ritual, a goat symbolically imbued with the sins of the people, and sent out alive into the wilderness while another was sacrificed.
 * 2) * 1646: alluding herein unto the heart of man and the precious bloud of our Saviour, who was typified by the Goat that was slain, and the scape-Goat in the Wilderness — Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Book II, ch 5
 * 3) Someone punished for the error or errors of someone else.
 * He is making me a scapegoat.
 * 1) * 1834: Thomas Babington Macaulay, "William Pitt, Earl of Chatham"
 * The new Secretary of State had been long sick of the perfidy and levity of the First Lord of the Treasury, and began to fear that he might be made a scapegoat to save the old intriguer who, imbecile as he seemed, never wanted dexterity where danger was to be avoided.

Synonyms

 * fall guy, patsy, whipping boy

Verb

 * 1)  To punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of.
 * Don't scapegoat me for your mistake.
 * 1) * 1950: Rachel Davis DuBois, Neighbors in Action: A Manual for Local Leaders in Intergroup Relations, p37
 * People tend to fear and then to scapegoat ... groups which seem to them to be fundamentally different from their own.
 * 1) * 1975: Richard M. Harris, Adam Kendon, Mary Ritchie Key, Organization of Behavior in Face-to-face Interaction, p66
 * They had been used for centuries to justify or rationalize the behavior of that status and conversely to scapegoat and blame some other category of people.
 * 1) * 1992: George H.W. Bush, State of the Union Address
 * And I want to add, as we make these changes, we work together to improve this system, that our intention is not scapegoating and finger-pointing.
 * 1) * 2004: Yvonne M. Agazarian, Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups, p208
 * Then either the world or others or the self becomes the target for the human tendency to scapegoat.
 * 1)  To blame something for the problems of a given society without evidence to back up the claim.

Thesaurus
burnt offering, collection, drink offering, dupe, ex voto offering, fall guy, front, goat, gull, heave offering, hecatomb, holocaust, human sacrifice, immolation, incense, infanticide, libation, mactation, man of straw, mark, oblation, offering, offertory, patsy, peace offering, piacular offering, sacramental offering, sacrifice, self-immolation, self-sacrifice, straw man, sucker, suttee, sutteeism, target, thank offering, victim, votive offering, whipping boy, whole offering

Etymology
Coined by Tyndale from, mis-translating עזאזל: (Leviticus 16:8, 10, 26), from an interpretation as coming from עז: and אוזל:. First attested 1530.

Noun

 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin: 代罪羔羊, 替罪羊
 * French:
 * German: Sündenbock
 * Greek:
 * Italian:


 * Japanese: 贖罪の山羊
 * Russian:
 * Serbo-Croatian: žrtveni jarac, žrtveno janje
 * Spanish: chivo expiatorio


 * Arabic:
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin: 替罪羊, 替死鬼, 代罪羔羊
 * Czech: obětní beránek
 * Danish: syndebuk
 * Dutch:
 * Esperanto: propeka kapro
 * Finnish: syntipukki
 * French:
 * German:, Prügelknabe
 * Greek:, εξιλαστήριο θύμα
 * Hungarian:
 * Icelandic:
 * Icelandic:


 * Indonesian: kambing hitam
 * Italian:, capro emissario
 * Japanese: スケープゴート, 身代わり, 生贄, 贖罪の山羊
 * Latvian: grēkāzis
 * Lithuanian: atpirkimo ožys
 * Norwegian:
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese:
 * Russian:
 * Serbian: жртвени јарац, žrtveni jarac
 * Spanish: ,
 * Swedish:
 * Turkish: günah keçisi, şamar oğlanı
 * Ukrainian: козел відпущення

Verb

 * Finnish: vierittää syy, sysätä syy
 * French: de  un,   comme


 * German: zum Sündenbock machen
 * Italian: fare da capro espiatorio
 * Portuguese: fazer de bode expiatório


 * Finnish: nimetä syntipukki

Related terms

 * scapegoater
 * scapegoatism