scapegoat means 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.
scapegoat is pronounced /ˈskeɪpˌɡoʊt/.
Why “scapegoat” is a great word
A person or group unfairly blamed or punished for the faults or problems of others, coined by William Tyndale in 1530 from scape (an archaic form of 'escape') and goat, as a translation of the Hebrew 'azazél' in Leviticus 16, interpreted as 'the goat that escapes'. Unlike a 'sacrificial lamb,' which implies a passive, innocent victim destroyed for purification, or a 'fall guy,' who takes the blame in a specific, often criminal scheme, the scapegoat is a vessel for the broader, darker anxieties of a tribe, a nation, or an age. It is the stranger accused when the harvest fails, the heretic condemned for a plague’s arrival, or the minority group vilified for an economic collapse—a figure driven out so the community, absolved, might feel clean again. The guilt must be seen to wander, alive and unshriven, just beyond the city walls.
Etymology
From scape + goat; coined by English biblical scholar and translator William Tyndale, interpreting Biblical Hebrew עֲזָאזֵל (“azazél”) (Leviticus 16:8, 10, 26), from an interpretation as coming from עֵז (ez, “goat”) and אוזל (ozél, “escapes”). First attested 1530. Compare English scapegrace, scapegallows.
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.“And Aarõ caſt lottes ouer the .ij. gootes: one lotte for the Lorde, ãd another for a ſcapegoote.”
- Someone unfairly blamed or punished for some failure.“He is making me a scapegoat for his own poor business decisions and the supply chain disruptions caused by the hurricane!”
verb
- To unfairly blame or punish someone for some failure; to make a scapegoat of.“People tend to fear and then to scapegoat ... groups which seem to them to be fundamentally different from their own.”
Words closest in meaning
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