patsy

Meaning

Noun

• A person who is taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something.

Origin

• The term dates back at least to the 1870s in the United States, close to the peak of Irish migration.
• The OED's recent revisions link Patsy with Pat and Paddy, the stereotype of the bogtrotter just off the boat.
• The American Heritage Dictionary and Online Etymology Dictionary quotes the OED it may derive from the Italian pazzo, and south Italian dialect paccio.
• Another possibility is the term derives from Patsy Bolivar, a character in an 1880s minstrel skit who was blamed whenever anything went wrong, in Broadway musical comedies, for example in The Errand Boy [1904] and Patsy in Politics [1907].