How to Use scapegoat in a Sentence

scapegoat

1 of 2 noun
  • The CEO was made the scapegoat for the company's failures.
  • Fourth, anger and the search for scapegoats.
    — David Blumenthal, STAT, 24 Mar. 2026
  • Don’t call him a scapegoat; the firing is deserved.
    — Miami Herald, 31 Oct. 2025
  • In short, the fearmongers need a new scapegoat.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 Feb. 2026
  • Instead, Kang Dae-il is used as a scapegoat.
    — Kayti Burt, Time, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The city is just kind of using us as a scapegoat for their negligence.
    — Los Angeles Times, 15 Apr. 2026
  • In some ways, France is an easy scapegoat for cynical army men.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 1 Sep. 2023
  • Which is not to say that they’re never jettisoned as a scapegoat.
    — Hannah Keyser, CNN Money, 15 May 2026
  • For years, tennis balls have been the sport’s fuzzy yellow scapegoat, blamed for poor play and even injuries.
    — Matt Craig, Forbes.com, 22 Aug. 2025
  • Joseph feels like a scapegoat because nobody can explain why two of his horses died.
    — USA TODAY, 6 May 2023
  • Karl-Anthony Towns can’t be the scapegoat for this one.
    — Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News, 20 Jan. 2026
  • 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
  • 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
  • In truth, maybe there’s not really a Yankees scapegoat at all.
    — Levi Weaver, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Likewise, the forward does not want to be used as some sort of scapegoat for the Warriors.
    — Valentina Martinez, MSNBC Newsweek, 15 Sep. 2025
  • When those practices were called into question, Chris was made the scapegoat.
    — Virginia Chamlee, PEOPLE.com, 16 Mar. 2022
  • Macherano was a ripe scapegoat.
    — Greg Cote april 16, Miami Herald, 16 Apr. 2026
  • Two of the most common roles narcissists force their kids into are the golden child and the scapegoat.
    — USA TODAY, 16 Aug. 2023
  • In such a situation, scapegoats are needed, and the alien is the ideal one.
    — Christine Smallwood, Harpers Magazine, 24 Mar. 2026
  • If the war drags on, casualties mount, and gas prices stay high, the need for a familiar scapegoat will grow.
    — The Week Us, TheWeek, 16 Mar. 2026
  • Avoid becoming the scapegoat for their fears as Venus and Pluto clash.
    — Usa Today, USA Today, 7 Nov. 2025
  • As the teacher of the missing kids, Justine is the default scapegoat.
    — Taryn Finley, Refinery29, 8 Aug. 2025
  • But Westbrook isn’t the scapegoat for all of the Lakers’ issues.
    — Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY, 28 Oct. 2022
  • How did your experience of this gene-editing world shape your portrayal of him as a scapegoat?
    — Megan Molteni, STAT, 13 Dec. 2022
  • 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
  • If Yankees fans are looking for a scapegoat, the answer might be the starting pitchers.
    — Levi Weaver, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
  • If the Sox need a scapegoat for this mess, Menechino would be a likely candidate.
    — Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, 23 Sep. 2022
  • The former Watford man found himself out the door after barely six months, such was the need for a scapegoat.
    — Paul Taylor, New York Times, 1 May 2026
  • 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
  • Steve Wilks is not a scapegoat for the 49ers losing the Super Bowl.
    — Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 14 Feb. 2024

scapegoat

2 of 2 verb
  • When there is no one to scapegoat or to scream spittle at, then what?
    — Sally Jenkins, chicagotribune.com, 6 June 2018
  • The solution to the delays that plague our courts is not to scapegoat judges.
    — Dana Leigh Marks, Fortune, 9 Apr. 2018
  • 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
  • Democrats like James Carville love to scapegoat Black people.
    — Michael Arceneaux, Essence, 11 Nov. 2021
  • Who thought this was a good idea, to scapegoat books for an institution's failings?
    — David L. Ulin, latimes.com, 11 May 2018
  • Not that this will prevent the usual crowd from continuing to scapegoat the media.
    — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 15 July 2011
  • But though the camp has often been scapegoated by Kenyan officials, those claims have never been proven.
    — Erin Blakemore, Smithsonian, 10 Feb. 2017
  • One effort was to scapegoat Robespierre and his closest friends, who were no longer alive to defend themselves.
    — Time, 21 Oct. 2025
  • And there's a tendency to scapegoat foreign policy, scapegoat trade and so forth.
    — CBS News, 25 Sep. 2019
  • The country needs to address the root cause of inflation and not scapegoat mobile money platforms.
    — Tawanda Karombo, Quartz, 28 Apr. 2022
  • 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
  • If efficiently scapegoated, the four could take the fall and business would continue as is.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 28 Sep. 2017
  • 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
  • Older generations have been known to scapegoat younger ones for the country’s economic woes.
    — Rebecca Renner, National Geographic, 17 Sep. 2020
  • Everybody, from migrants to law enforcement, loves to scapegoat the smuggler.
    — Matt Giles, Longreads, 19 Oct. 2017
  • 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
  • But that also eradicates a crucial option - to mount a show trial and scapegoat him for all the ills of his rule, thus absolving others.
    — Melik Kaylan, Forbes.com, 29 June 2026
  • 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
  • In fact, many in the film community believe she has been unfairly scapegoated for Epstein’s sins.
    — Ben Widdicombe, Town & Country, 6 Nov. 2019
  • Some white parents complained that the nation’s oldest public high school was being unfairly scapegoated.
    — Adrian Walker, BostonGlobe.com, 1 July 2018
  • 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
  • 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
  • That meeting drew some controversy from portions of the industry afraid of being scapegoated for real-world shootings.
    — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 6 Mar. 2018
  • History is full of tragic stories of frightened people who try to scapegoat a minority population and whip up an angry mob to run them out of town.
    — Mark Eddington, The Salt Lake Tribune, 21 Oct. 2022
  • 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
  • Instead of confronting the outsized influence of private industry on public lands, the state of Colorado looks the other way and scapegoats wild horses.
    — Jennifer Best, Denver Post, 18 Aug. 2025
  • 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

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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