Word Finder - scapegoat

definition

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.

definition

Someone punished for the error or errors of someone else.

example

He is making me a scapegoat.

definition

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

definition

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

He made a good scapegoat for everything that had been going wrong lately.

They simply wanted to find a scapegoat to blame for the recycling blunder.

He is a good, decent man and does not deserve to be turned into a political scapegoat.

To escape from the consequences of their actions it suits them fine to shift blame onto the victim - and to create the scapegoat.

The Day of Atonement is the only fast provided in the Law; it is only on this occasion that (a) the Jews are required to " afflict their souls," (b) the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies, (c) the High Priest offers incense before the mercy seat and sprinkles it with blood, and (d) the scapegoat or Azazel is sent away into the wilderness, bearing upon him all the iniquities of the people.

The pent-up aggression of these cycles is defused by the setting in motion of the scapegoat mechanism.

You are blaming the supplier, a convenient scapegoat.

Whether or not it had played a part in inciting the boys to murder, the video provided an easy scapegoat.

It was his misfortune to be the scapegoat upon whose head parliament laid the accumulated sins, real and imaginary, of the East India Company.

This raises the problem of how far the catharsis dealt with above is in its original form an elimination of impurity, and how far something more definite - a spirit or other principle of evil - is held to be expelled by scapegoat and allied ceremonies.

He returned to Holland in 1665 and was made a scapegoat by the West India Company for all its failings in New Amsterdam; he went back to New York again after the treaty of Breda in 1667, having secured the right of free trade between Holland and New York.

She wished Paulet would manage the business on his own account, and when at last her signature was extorted she made a scapegoat of her secretary Davison who had the warrant executed.

Louis made light of the whole incident in his letters, but it marked the greatest humiliation of his life, and he was only too glad to find a scapegoat in Cardinal Jean Balue, who was accused of having plotted the treason of Peronne.

A whole agency may be made a scapegoat for the failure of an inter-agency project.

And above all else, too often people have been willing to make Brussels the scapegoat for problems at home.

Often, indeed, the IMF is a useful scapegoat for governments having to force through unpopular reforms.

At Rome the scapegoat did not suffer death; but in the Saturnalia a human victim seems to have been slain till the 4th century A.D.

In these customs originated perhaps the scapegoat, some forms of sacrifice and other cathartic ceremonies.

Although a minor figure in the conspiracy, Tira-dentes was made the scapegoat of the thirtytwo men arrested and sent to Rio de Janeiro for trial, and posterity has made him the proto-martyr of republicanism in Brazil.

In addition, they help fuel the rise in racism by attempting to scapegoat asylum seekers for all the government 's shortcomings.

Old Maid is also known as a "scapegoat" card game, in which you try to not have a particular card in your hand.

The driver for the backlash is that regulation seems to have become businesses ' favorite scapegoat for their own problems.

With regard to the scapegoat, it must be noted that we also meet with a more concrete idea of expulsion of evil (see Demonology, Exorcism), which is present among the most primitive peoples, such as the Australians.

Whether that's because communities needed a scapegoat or a video game did spark the violence, it's clear that violence within a video game initiated a desire to cause destruction.

The Iroquois sacrifice of the white dog bore in later times the character of a scapegoat festival; but it is doubtful how far this was an original feature.

It is equally impossible to give a general survey of the purposes of sacrifice; not only are they too numerous but it is rare to find any but mixed forms; the scapegoat, for example, is also a messenger to the dead, and its flesh is eaten by the sacrificers.