scapegoat

Meanings

Noun

• 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.
• Someone unfairly blamed or punished for some failure.

Verb

• To unfairly blame or punish someone for some failure; to make a scapegoat of.

Origin

• From scape + goat; coined by Tyndale, interpreting (Leviticus 16:8, 10, 26), from an interpretation as coming from עֵז and אוזל. First attested 1530. Compare English scapegrace, scapegallows.