Scapegoat vs Witchhunt - What's the difference?
scapegoat | witchhunt |
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.
As nouns the difference between scapegoat and witchhunt
is that 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 while witchhunt is alternative form of witch-hunt.As a verb scapegoat
is to punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of.scapegoat
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 .