FluentPlex

scapegoat

/ˈskeɪpˌɡoʊt/ verb C2
  1. To unfairly blame or punish someone for some failure; to make a scapegoat of. (intransitive, transitive)

He/she/it scapegoats · Past scapegoated · Past participle scapegoated · -ing form scapegoating

+ Save to review

Verb forms

Base form
scapegoat
He/she/it
scapegoats
Past
scapegoated
Past participle
scapegoated
-ing form
scapegoating

From the library

Phillips’s brief reforming energy was over; he didn’t want the bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and disheveled appearance.
Anne of Green Gables, p. 117 · C1

Other matches

Learn scapegoat in real texts

With a free account, hover any word in the library for its meaning, hear it read aloud, save words for review timed to your memory, and see how much of each book you already know.

Create free account
Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.