What does scapegoat mean?
A scapegoat is a person who is blamed for wrongdoing or mistakes that belong to someone else. The word describes both the act of unfairly shifting responsibility and the person chosen to receive that blame. In workplaces, schools, governments, and families, a scapegoat may be selected to conceal the real cause of a problem or to avoid accountability. Calling someone a scapegoat generally implies that the accusation is unjust, although the expression can sometimes be used more loosely to describe any convenient target of criticism. The word's unusual history comes from the biblical ritual in which a goat was sent away into the wilderness with the sins of the community symbolically placed upon it. Today, scapegoat continues to be a useful term for recognizing how blame can be manipulated and how individuals may be made to suffer for collective or institutional failures.
nounA person who is unfairly blamed or made to bear responsibility for the faults or mistakes of others. The word can also refer to a person or group singled out as the target of blame.
- A person unfairly blamed for the mistakes, misconduct, or failures of others.
- A person or group deliberately made to bear the consequences of other people's actions.
"The chief executive became a scapegoat for the company's financial difficulties."
"Teachers should not be made scapegoats for failures caused by inadequate resources."
"The dispute over the new policy turned into an attempt to identify a scapegoat before anyone accepted responsibility."
The regular plural is “scapegoats.”
"The inquiry identified several scapegoats rather than examining the wider causes of the failure."
The word began with a literal animal: in the biblical ritual, a goat was sent into the wilderness carrying the community's sins.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does scapegoat come from?
The modern word developed from the biblical term for the goat that was sent into the wilderness during the ritual described in Leviticus, with the community's sins symbolically transferred to the animal. In English, the earlier form was “scape-goat,” using “scape,” now chiefly poetic, as a shortened form of “escape.” The figurative sense, meaning a person who bears blame for others, developed by extension from the animal's role as a symbolic carrier of communal guilt.
Related word forms
How scapegoat is actually used
The term is commonly used when responsibility is unfairly assigned to someone else. It can be used in political, institutional, legal, and everyday contexts, and usually carries a critical or accusatory tone.