Martyr vs Scapegoat - What's the difference?
martyr | scapegoat |
One who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom.
(by extension) One who sacrifices his or her life, station, or something of great personal value, for the sake of principle or to sustain a cause.
(with a prepositional phrase of cause) One who suffers greatly and/or constantly, even involuntarily.
* {{quote-book
, year=1937
, author=AJ Cronin
, title=The Citadel
, passage=He'd been a martyr to asthma all his life.}}
One who is killed or suffers greatly because of an identity or position, e.g., a young prince killed when his father, the king, is deposed for the purpose of preventing the restoration of the monarchy later.
To make someone into a martyr by putting him or her to death for adhering to, or acting in accordance with, some belief, especially religious; to sacrifice on account of faith or profession.
To persecute.
To torment; to torture.
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.
* 1646 , Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica , Book II, ch 5
Someone punished for the error or errors of someone else.
* 1834 , Thomas Babington Macaulay, "William Pitt, Earl of Chatham" [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2332]
To punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of.
:: Don't scapegoat me for your mistake.
* 1950 , Rachel Davis DuBois, Neighbors in Action: A Manual for Local Leaders in Intergroup Relations , p37
* 1975 , Richard M. Harris, Adam Kendon, Mary Ritchie Key, Organization of Behavior in Face-to-face Interaction , p66
* 1992 , George H.W. Bush, State of the Union Address [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5047]
* 2004 , Yvonne M. Agazarian, Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups , p208
To blame something for the problems of a given society without evidence to back up the claim.
In lang=en terms the difference between martyr and scapegoat
is that martyr is to torment; to torture while scapegoat is to blame something for the problems of a given society without evidence to back up the claim.As nouns the difference between martyr and scapegoat
is that martyr is one who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom while scapegoat is 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.As verbs the difference between martyr and scapegoat
is that martyr is to make someone into a martyr by putting him or her to death for adhering to, or acting in accordance with, some belief, especially religious; to sacrifice on account of faith or profession while scapegoat is to punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of.martyr
English
(wikipedia martyr)Noun
(en noun)- Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr .
- Stan is a martyr''' to arthritis, Chris a ' martyr to Stan's endless moaning about it.
Synonyms
* shaheed, shahidAntonyms
* confessorDerived terms
{{der3, martyr complex , martyrdom , martyress , martyrial , martyrish , martyrizate , martyrize , martyrizer , martyrly , martyrolatry , martyrless , martyrship}}Verb
(en verb)- ''Some religious and other minorities were martyred until extinction.
- The lovely Amoret, whose gentle heart
- Thou martyrest with sorrow and with smart. — Spenser
Synonyms
* martyrizeDerived terms
* martyrerscapegoat
English
(wikipedia scapegoat)Noun
(en noun)- alluding herein unto the heart of man and the precious bloud of our Saviour, who was typified by the Goat that was slain, and the scape-Goat in the Wilderness
- He is making me a scapegoat .
- The new Secretary of State had been long sick of the perfidy and levity of the First Lord of the Treasury, and began to fear that he might be made a scapegoat to save the old intriguer who, imbecile as he seemed, never wanted dexterity where danger was to be avoided.
Synonyms
* fall guy, patsy, whipping boyVerb
(en verb)- People tend to fear and then to scapegoat ... groups which seem to them to be fundamentally different from their own.
- They had been used for centuries to justify or rationalize the behavior of that status and conversely to scapegoat and blame some other category of people.
- And I want to add, as we make these changes, we work together to improve this system, that our intention is not scapegoating and finger-pointing.
- Then either the world or others or the self becomes the target for the human tendency to scapegoat .