scapegoat

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
But he still believes that screwing a scapegoat is as good as screwing a real goat.

View all »
Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun One that is made to bear the blame of others.
  2. noun Bible A live goat over whose head Aaron confessed all the sins of the children of Israel on the Day of Atonement. The goat, symbolically bearing their sins, was then sent into the wilderness.
  3. transitive verb To make a scapegoat of.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Through all the centuries, in youth and age, private and public, the scapegoat has been the real hero in all troubles and misfortunes. —  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shakspere, by Colonel John A. Joyce
  • Everybody is so anxious for a scapegoat, they overlook the economic downturn and negative market dynamics He gets up and says to Bascombe, “If you use your bully pulpit to skewer me in print, your libel insurance premiums better be paid up And your life insurance premiums, sir, are they current?” Bascombe asks Smithert sits down. —  AHMM,January-February2007
  • If they did strike, management would likely fire her as a scapegoat--since she was still on probation--so she couldn't allow that to happen The Anabe Girls The models of the Anabe Agency were highly sought after. —  Challenging Destiny - 2005 - 21
  • What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make B-cup the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he's not. —  Think Progress
  • Guede reportedly sent a letter to his lawyers expressing his fear of being made a scapegoat, and taking issue with the way he has been depicted as a drug dealer and addict. —  Top Stories: BreakingNews.ie
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 222 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

gyp ·  warand

Used in the same contextWord Family

scapegoat:   scapegoats
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. scape2 + goat (translation of Hebrew 'ēz 'ōzēl, goat that escapes, misreading of 'ăzā'zēl, Azazel).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from scape + goat.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈskeɪpgoʊt/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a month.

Recently looked up

spurns · ruddy · download · procurement · oto

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich