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capro espiatorio — meaning in English

Italian → English · translate English → Italian instead

English meaning

  • Patsy noun A person who is easily blamed, deceived, or taken advantage of by others.
  • scapegoat noun A person blamed for a problem or failure that was not really their fault, often to protect others.

Senses

capro espiatorio is used for these senses in English:

  • patsy (informal, derogatory) A person who is taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something.
  • scapegoat 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 Someone unfairly blamed or punished for some failure.
  • whipping boy (transferred sense) Someone punished for the errors of others.

scapegoat — full definition

  1. noun A person blamed for a problem or failure that was not really their fault, often to protect others.
  2. verb To unfairly blame someone for a failure.

Related Italian words