- whipping boy
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1. a person who is made to bear the blame for another's mistake; scapegoat.2. (formerly) a boy educated along with and taking punishment in place of a young prince or nobleman.[1640-50]
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Universalium. 2010.
whipping boy
Look at other dictionaries:
whipping boy — whipping boys N COUNT If someone or something is a whipping boy for a particular situation, they get all the blame for it. He has become a convenient whipping boy for the failures of the old regime. Syn: scapegoat … English dictionary
whipping boy — ► NOUN ▪ a person who is blamed or punished for the faults or incompetence of others. ORIGIN originally denoting a boy educated with a young prince and punished instead of him … English terms dictionary
whipping boy — n. 1. Historical a boy brought up together with a young prince and required to take the punishment for the latter s misdeeds 2. SCAPEGOAT (sense 2) … English World dictionary
Whipping-boy — (engl., spr. Uipping beu, d.i. Prügelknabe), so v.w. Sühnbock … Pierer's Universal-Lexikon
Whipping Boy — Allgemeine Informationen Genre(s) Alternative Rock Gründung 1988 Auflösung 1998 Neugründung 2005 … Deutsch Wikipedia
whipping boy — n [singular] someone or something that is blamed for someone else s mistakes = ↑scapegoat … Dictionary of contemporary English
whipping boy — whipping ,boy noun count someone who is punished for someone else s mistake or crime, usually because they have less power than that person … Usage of the words and phrases in modern English
whipping boy — [n] scapegoat dupe, fall guy*, goat*, mark*, patsy*, sacrifice, sucker, target, victim; concept 412 … New thesaurus
Whipping boy — A whipping boy, in the 1600 and 1700s, was a young boy who was assigned to a young prince and was punished when the prince misbehaved or fell behind in his schooling. Whipping boys were established in the English court during the monarchies of… … Wikipedia
whipping boy — noun someone who is punished for the errors of others • Syn: ↑scapegoat • Hypernyms: ↑victim * * * noun, pl ⋯ boys [count] : someone or something that often is blamed for problems caused by other people The coach has become the whipping boy… … Useful english dictionary
whipping boy — {n. phr.} The person who gets punished for someone else s mistake. * / I used to be the whipping boy during my early days at the company, he musingly remembered./ … Dictionary of American idioms
