Crossword clues for scapegoat
scapegoat
- Person wrongly blamed
- Person punished positioned to welcome better self
- Patsy succeeded with attack on head
- Blame safari company initially over simian attack
- A pact goes wrong — he’s blamed unfairly
- Person to blame
- Victim of a sort
- Relative of a fall guy
- Person who's usually blamed (3 to 6)
- Person taking the blame
- One blamed for others' mistakes
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scapegoat \Scape"goat`\, n. [Scape (for escape) + goat.]
(Jewish Antiq.) A goat upon whose head were symbolically placed the sins of the people, after which he was suffered to escape into the wilderness.
--Lev. xvi. 10.Hence, a person or thing that is made to bear blame for others.
--Tennyson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1530, "goat sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement, symbolic bearer of the sins of the people," coined by Tyndale from scape (n.1) + goat to translate Latin caper emissarius, itself a translation in Vulgate of Hebrew 'azazel (Lev. xvi:8,10,26), which was read as 'ez ozel "goat that departs," but which others hold to be the proper name of a devil or demon in Jewish mythology (sometimes identified with Canaanite deity Aziz).\n
\nJerome's reading also was followed by Martin Luther (der ledige Bock), Symmachus (tragos aperkhomenos), and others (compare French bouc émissaire), but the question of who, or what (or even where) is meant by 'azazel is a vexed one. The Revised Version (1884) simply restores Azazel. But the old translation has its modern defenders:\n\nAzazel is an active participle or participial noun, derived ultimately from azal (connected with the Arabic word azala, and meaning removed), but immediately from the reduplicate form of that verb, azazal. The reduplication of the consonants of the root in Hebrew and Arabic gives the force of repetition, so that while azal means removed, azalzal means removed by a repetition of acts. Azalzel or azazel, therefore, means one who removes by a series of acts. ... The interpretation is founded on sound etymological grounds, it suits the context wherever the word occurs, it is consistent with the remaining ceremonial of the Day of Atonement, and it accords with the otherwise known religious beliefs and symbolical practices of the Israelites.
[Rev. F. Meyrick, "Leviticus," London, 1882]
\nMeaning "one who is blamed or punished for the mistakes or sins of others" first recorded 1824; the verb is attested from 1943. Related: Scapegoated; scapegoating.\n For the formation, compare scapegrace, also scape-gallows "one who deserves hanging."Wiktionary
n. 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 Someone punished for the error or errors of someone else. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of. 2 (context transitive English) To blame something for the problems of a given society without evidence to back up the claim.
WordNet
n. someone punished for the errors of others [syn: whipping boy]
Wikipedia
A scapegoat is a person unfairly blamed for some misfortune, or an actual goat Azazel used in a Jewish ritual.
The act of scapegoating is a recent coinage for the practice of singling out a party as a scapegoat, i.e. for unmerited negative treatment or blame.
Scapegoat or The Scapegoat may also refer to:
Scapegoat is an American rock group formed in 1999, in Charlotte, North Carolina and one of the first bands signed to Tragic Hero Records. Scapegoat is credited with bringing attention and recognition to the North Carolina rock music scene.
A scapegoat is a person or animal which takes on the sins of others, or is unfairly blamed for problems. The concept comes originally from Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert with the sins of the community. Other ancient societies had similar practices. In psychology and sociology, the practice of selecting someone as a scapegoat has led to the concept of scapegoating.
"Scapegoat" is a song by Nigerian Afrobeat recording artist D'banj, released on September 16, 2010. The song was produced by Don Jazzy. It was included on Mr. Endowed 's track listing, an album that was never released due to D'banj's breakup with Don Jazzy and Mo' Hits.
Usage examples of "scapegoat".
He had given good proof of his manhood in the past by standing five-and-twenty years scapegoat for Ben Aboo between him and his people, making him rich by his extortions, keeping him safe in his seat, and thereby saving him from the wooden jellab which Abd er-Rahman, the Sultan, kept for Kaids that could not pay.
Your scapegoat, who sins against them and oppresses them and brings them by bitter tortures to the dust and death.
And good men lay perishing in his prisons, and children, starved to death, lay in their graves, and he himself, his servant and scapegoat, whose brains he had drained, whose blood he had sweated, stood before him there like an old lion, who had been wandering far and was beaten back by his cubs.
Either Ted was his accomplice, or he made him a scapegoat, just like he did with Matthew.
He suspected that the emperor had not summoned him to find a scapegoat, but simply to learn more about the Tuigan.
Nevertheless, Chanar was blaming the Shou, hoping to provide the khahan with a convenient scapegoat for what appeared to be a disastrous decision.
He knew the savagery that moved them, the frustrations that demanded a scapegoat, the consciousness of guilt, of wrongdoing, of failure that cried out for an external soul to punish, that created one on demand.
He understood their need for a scapegoat to take the blame for their sins, and he also understood their desires for someone better than themselves to represent their finest aspirations.
She was the bait inside the trap, the distraction, the scapegoat for all their sins.
In political terms, because of the intolerability of holding this rage within the self, it is projected into a designated other--the scapegoat race or religion that becomes the hated enemy.
This process is equally striking in individual psychosis and in group-dependent psychosis, where traditional forms of moral behavior cease to function in relation to the scapegoat group.
If they are looking for a scapegoat we might as well grow horns and start eating garbage.
He would have made an excellent scapegoat and saved a deal of trouble.
Glancing through newspapers and speaking to friends, he immediately recognized he was being made a scapegoat for the events at Bull Run.
Joint Committee, dominated by grim-jawed Republicans, had a convenient scapegoat in Robert Patterson.