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Scapegoat   /skˈeɪpgˌoʊt/   Listen
noun
Scapegoat  n.  
1.
(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.
2.
Hence, a person or thing that is made to bear blame for others.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Scapegoat" Quotes from Famous Books



... a certain superstitious uneasiness, but was finally won over, and Ulie was unanimously elected the scapegoat—or in more modern ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... reconcile "houses," "tabernacles," "altars," as well as to reconcile men. It had simply a ceremonial significance. Such rites were common in many of the early religions. They were not the efficient cause of pardon, but were the formal condition of reconciliation. And then, in regard to the scapegoat, it was not sacrificed as an expiation for sinners; it merely symbolically carried off the sins already freely forgiven. All these forms and phrases were inwrought with the whole national life and religious language of the Jews. Now, when Jesus appeared, a messenger ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... World. It was a pretty beastly story, and I don't gather that Schwabing was as deep in it as some others. But the trouble was that those others had to be shielded at all costs, and Schwabing was made the scapegoat. His name came out in the papers and he had ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... to his English home just two years and one month from the time he had left it, and he brought back a picture of the goat upon which the Jews loaded their sins and then turned loose in waste-places to wander and die. "The Scapegoat" was a great picture, but before he left England he had painted a greater—the one we see here—"The ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... he could, they had been forced to bring him in guilty, but beg he may be spared. The discussions and difference of opinions, on the sentence is incredible. The cabinet council, I believe, will be to determine whether the King shall pardon him or not: some who wish to make him the scapegoat for their own neglects, I fear, will try to complete his fate, but I should think the new administration will not be biassed to blood by such interested attempts. He bore well his Unexpected sentence, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole


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