Definitions for scapegoats

scapegoats scape·goat

Spelling: [skeyp-goht]
IPA: /ˈskeɪpˌgoʊt/

Scapegoats is a 10 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 14 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 17 points.

You can make 572 anagrams from letters in scapegoats (aacegopsst).

Definitions for scapegoats

noun

  1. a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place.
  2. Chiefly Biblical. a goat let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on its head. Lev. 16:8,10,26.

verb (used with object)

  1. to make a scapegoat of:

Origin of scapegoats

First recorded in 1520-30; scape2 + goat

Examples for scapegoats

Contending that he was being used as a scapegoat, Palmer asked for a trade.

They are vouching for Shadman, saying he is a scapegoat of a shoddy investigation.

They will not readily yield up their scapegoat or sacrifice their privileges.

For what he had suffered at the hands of Man he had chosen to make Spain the scapegoat.

The scapegoat is invariably an outsider, existing at the margins of a community, and resisting its core values.

We can't allow them to throw the Emperor out, so we need a scapegoat.

But the choice of a scapegoat is never really arbitrary, as scholar René Girard has shown in his classic study of the phenomenon.

If the people demand a scapegoat, governments usually provide one.

I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of Regency—a sort of scapegoat.

Smith, the current police chief, called Lee a “scapegoat” who was “thrown to the wolves” to satisfy political critics.

Word Value for scapegoats
Scrable

14

Words with friends

17

Similar words for scapegoats
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