How to Use scapegoat in a Sentence

scapegoat

1 of 2 noun
  • The CEO was made the scapegoat for the company's failures.
  • But they were used a a scapegoat for the rest of the league!
    Matt Young, Chron, 12 Apr. 2022
  • To put me as the scapegoat for him for losing his faith?
    Dory Jackson, Peoplemag, 2 Oct. 2023
  • Steve Wilks is not a scapegoat for the 49ers losing the Super Bowl.
    Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 14 Feb. 2024
  • So, how did the bank’s DEI efforts become the scapegoat?
    Ellen McGirt, Fortune, 14 Mar. 2023
  • But Westbrook isn’t the scapegoat for all of the Lakers’ issues.
    Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY, 28 Oct. 2022
  • That placed Baric in rarefied air: a scapegoat for politicians in both the U.S. and China.
    Dan Werb, Time, 11 July 2023
  • Two of the most common roles narcissists force their kids into are the golden child and the scapegoat.
    USA TODAY, 16 Aug. 2023
  • In some ways, France is an easy scapegoat for cynical army men.
    Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 1 Sep. 2023
  • One response said the phrase is simply a buzzword and scapegoat for any item that doesn't arrive on time.
    Naomi Ludlow, USA TODAY, 3 Jan. 2022
  • If the Sox need a scapegoat for this mess, Menechino would be a likely candidate.
    Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, 23 Sep. 2022
  • Will voters listen to him plead his case, or will he be made a scapegoat for the city’s bigger problems?
    Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Apr. 2022
  • That’s a convenient scapegoat for Mr. Bailey and other central bankers, but that isn’t the half of it.
    The Editorial Board, WSJ, 28 Sep. 2022
  • When those practices were called into question, Chris was made the scapegoat.
    Virginia Chamlee, PEOPLE.com, 16 Mar. 2022
  • In her latest book, Larry Skadarry serves as a scapegoat who takes the blame when a parent forgets to take on the role of a tooth fairy.
    Anne Nickoloff, cleveland, 2 Dec. 2021
  • When the economy sputters, when a virus spreads, people crave a scapegoat, and Jews have long been a target.
    Danielle Paquette, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Jan. 2023
  • Des Jardins’ agent told the Washington Post that her client, who rented items from a prop house, is being used as a scapegoat.
    Christina Binkley, Vogue, 29 Nov. 2022
  • The Jews have been a reliable societal scapegoat for well over 2,000 years.
    Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 19 Sep. 2023
  • Shame on Jennie Buss and company, don’t use Vogel as the scapegoat.
    Los Angeles Times, 29 Jan. 2022
  • Joseph feels like a scapegoat because nobody can explain why two of his horses died.
    USA TODAY, 6 May 2023
  • The very human instinct to seek scapegoats for every crisis is playing out again on Wall Street.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2023
  • His lawyer blamed a repair shop for the vehicle’s problems and said his client was being treated like a scapegoat.
    Michael R. Sisak and Jennifer Peltz, BostonGlobe.com, 28 July 2023
  • And when Sooners tailback Kennedy Brooks scored from 18 yards out on the very next snap, Worthy might have assumed full scapegoat status.
    Nick Moyle, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Oct. 2021
  • Tennessee fans have made Tannehill the scapegoat for the loss, angry at missing the franchise’s first Super Bowl in 22 years.
    oregonlive, 3 May 2022
  • But McGee wasn’t the only scapegoat for another first-quarter deficit (34-29).
    Dallas News, 7 Nov. 2022
  • But in this city, mourning and on edge, anticipating the next big earthquake, Turks want a scapegoat.
    Fariba Nawa, The Christian Science Monitor, 23 Mar. 2023
  • But if the operation fails, the Kremlin leader would likely look for a scapegoat.
    Thomas Grove, WSJ, 6 Mar. 2022
  • Arizona Diamondbacks fans are looking for a scapegoat for the team's abysmal second half of the MLB season.
    Jeremy Cluff, The Arizona Republic, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Wilks has been characterized as a scapegoat for the 49ers not winning a championship.
    Cam Inman, The Mercury News, 2 Mar. 2024
  • However, the scapegoat model ignores the nuances of the current landscape—and leads to companies following all the wrong strategies to minimize risk.
    Al Khan, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2024
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scapegoat

2 of 2 verb
  • And President Trump wanted to scapegoat us again on the virus and the hate virus.
    Cecilia Lei, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 June 2021
  • The solution to the delays that plague our courts is not to scapegoat judges.
    Dana Leigh Marks, Fortune, 9 Apr. 2018
  • When there is no one to scapegoat or to scream spittle at, then what?
    Sally Jenkins, chicagotribune.com, 6 June 2018
  • Democrats like James Carville love to scapegoat Black people.
    Michael Arceneaux, Essence, 11 Nov. 2021
  • The point here is not to scapegoat teachers or doctors and nurses.
    Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur, Vox, 24 May 2018
  • The two have pleaded not guilty and say they are being scapegoated.
    Time, 15 Dec. 2017
  • Those who scapegoat choose targets that feel safe to blame, Stewart said.
    Katherine Kam, Washington Post, 19 July 2022
  • We were scapegoated by this president as a way to win the last election.
    Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 15 Nov. 2019
  • Danilov argued that the FSB was in fact responsible for the bombing and is trying to scapegoat Ukraine.
    Anders Hagstrom, Fox News, 23 Aug. 2022
  • Jeff Weaver, a spokesman for Ms. Sanders and her husband, said that she was being scapegoated for the college’s failure.
    Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, 10 July 2017
  • Who thought this was a good idea, to scapegoat books for an institution's failings?
    David L. Ulin, latimes.com, 11 May 2018
  • The way it is being perceived in Pakistan is that we are being scapegoated for failure in Afghanistan.
    Ann M. Simmons, latimes.com, 14 Feb. 2018
  • The country needs to address the root cause of inflation and not scapegoat mobile money platforms.
    Tawanda Karombo, Quartz, 28 Apr. 2022
  • But though the camp has often been scapegoated by Kenyan officials, those claims have never been proven.
    Erin Blakemore, Smithsonian, 10 Feb. 2017
  • But though the camp has often been scapegoated by Kenyan officials, those claims have never been proven.
    Erin Blakemore, Smithsonian, 10 Feb. 2017
  • Not that this will prevent the usual crowd from continuing to scapegoat the media.
    Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 15 July 2011
  • People who would scapegoat Higgins — who did nothing wrong and by all accounts was distraught after the game — are the lowest of the low, the human equivalent of that gunk on the sole of your shoe.
    Chad Finn, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Jan. 2023
  • If efficiently scapegoated, the four could take the fall and business would continue as is.
    Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 28 Sep. 2017
  • And there's a tendency to scapegoat foreign policy, scapegoat trade and so forth.
    CBS News, 25 Sep. 2019
  • Right-wing politicians and media are trying to scapegoat frozen wind turbines for the state’s power disaster.
    Heather Hansman, Outside Online, 17 Feb. 2021
  • And here’s a look at the Petco Park-era hitting coaches, all of them scapegoats for offenses that have struggled since moving into the downtown venue.
    Jeff Sanders, sandiegouniontribune.com, 2 Sep. 2017
  • To some tech workers, targeting their free food feels more like scapegoating for the city’s problems than like sound policy.
    Nellie Bowles, The Seattle Times, 31 July 2018
  • Older generations have been known to scapegoat younger ones for the country’s economic woes.
    Rebecca Renner, National Geographic, 17 Sep. 2020
  • In fact, many in the film community believe she has been unfairly scapegoated for Epstein’s sins.
    Ben Widdicombe, Town & Country, 6 Nov. 2019
  • To scapegoat the few women in the party—who were, by the way, all excluded from the working group that crafted the legislation—shows that the GOP’s gender imbalance is more than just an optics problem.
    Suzanne Monyak, New Republic, 24 July 2017
  • Everybody, from migrants to law enforcement, loves to scapegoat the smuggler.
    Matt Giles, Longreads, 19 Oct. 2017
  • But those who scapegoat Amy risk missing a critical portion of the story—Alcott’s loving portrayal of her real-life sister, May, on whom Amy is based.
    Erin Blakemore, Smithsonian, 14 Aug. 2019
  • In the past, mental illness has been scapegoated to deflect public outrage about access to assault rifles that can kill many people in a matter of minutes.
    Arash Javanbakht, CBS News, 1 Mar. 2018
  • Since then, Trump has iced out Muslims and scapegoated our community for his own political gain.
    Ziad Ahmed, Teen Vogue, 7 June 2018
  • None of this is meant to scapegoat any particular player or players, when everyone is culpable to some degree.
    Mark Deeks, Forbes, 31 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'scapegoat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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