What does scapegoat mean?

Definitions for scapegoat
ˈskeɪpˌgoʊtscape·goat

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word scapegoat.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. scapegoat, whipping boynoun

    someone who is punished for the errors of others

Wiktionary

  1. scapegoatnoun

    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. scapegoatnoun

    Someone punished for the error or errors of someone else.

    He is making me a scapegoat.

  3. scapegoatverb

    To punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of.

  4. scapegoatverb

    To blame something for the problems of a given society without evidence to back up the claim.

Wikipedia

  1. Scapegoat

    In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community. Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. Practices with some similarities to the scapegoat ritual also appear in Ancient Greece and Ebla.

ChatGPT

  1. scapegoat

    A scapegoat is a person or group unjustly blamed for something or made to bear the blame for the mistakes or faults of others. The term has its origins in ancient Jewish customs, where a goat was symbolically burdened with the sins of the people then driven into the wilderness in an act of atonement.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Scapegoatnoun

    a goat upon whose head were symbolically placed the sins of the people, after which he was suffered to escape into the wilderness

  2. Scapegoatnoun

    hence, a person or thing that is made to bear blame for others

  3. Etymology: [Scape (for escape) + goat.]

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Scapegoat

    skāp′gōt, n. a goat on which, once a year, the Jewish high-priest laid symbolically the sins of the people, and which was then allowed to escape into the wilderness (Levit. xvi.): one who is made to bear the misdeeds of another. [Escape and goat.]

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of scapegoat in Chaldean Numerology is: 8

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of scapegoat in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6

Examples of scapegoat in a Sentence

  1. Reginald Ellis:

    It’s important that that’s taught. But what I think is not good is to scapegoat students based on skin color. what I find, even at a historically Black college, the vast majority of students have not really been exposed to much African American history and experience.

  2. Cedric Richmond:

    I am not going to let them use Steve as a scapegoat to score political points when I know him and know his family, i don't think Steve Scalise has a racist bone in his body.

  3. The Belgian police union:

    The NSPV notes that the political government is looking for a scapegoat in connection with the attacks in Zaventem, as a trade union we can only be outraged about this state of affairs. [We are] heartbroken to establish that police would be pilloried without any kind of defense.

  4. President Barack Obama:

    As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don't look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background, we can't afford to go down that path. It won't deliver the economy we want, or the security we want, but most of all, it contradicts everything that makes us the envy of the world.

  5. Mike Lynch:

    After three years of (HP CEO) Meg Whitman's stonewalling, is this it?, hP's claim is finally laid bare for what it is -- a desperate search for a scapegoat for its own errors and incompetence.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

scapegoat#10000#48541#100000

Translations for scapegoat

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"scapegoat." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/scapegoat>.

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