scapegoat
noun

- a person who is blamed for something that someone else has done

(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

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DID YOU KNOW?

The word scapegoat has a long and interesting etymological history. Under the law of Moses, the Hebrew Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) included a ritual involving two goats. One was slain and offered as a sacrifice for the sins of the people. With the second goat, called Azazel, the high priest laid his hands upon its head while confessing the sins of the people.

Now carrying the burden of the sins of the people, the goat was then taken to an isolated region and released into the wilderness. In other words, it escaped.

Later translators of the Bible interpreted the word Azazel to mean "the goat that escaped," eventually giving us the word (e)scapegoat. However, most modern Jewish scholars believe Azazel was really the name of a powerful demon who ruled the wilderness. Thus the goat that escaped to the wilderness carrying the sins of mankind on its head was referred to as "Azazel's goat."

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SYNONYMS

chump, doormat, dupe, easy mark, fall guy, fool, goat, gull, mark, patsy, pigeon, pushover, sacrifice, sap, schmuck, sitting duck, stooge, sucker, victim, weakling

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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:

"It's a sad fact that sometimes more effort is put into finding scapegoats than to finding solutions."