Word.ws English Dictionary

scape-animal

scape-animal noun: an animal that has symbolically had human diseases and sins transferred to it and then is sent out alive into the wilderness to carry away the afflictions.

Noun

scape-animal (plural scape-animals)

  1. An animal that has symbolically had human diseases and sins transferred to it and then is sent out alive into the wilderness to carry away the afflictions.
    • A very common one was to take an animal and, after various ceremonies, to sprinkle it with blood and let it loose as a scape-animal, carrying the disease away.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 32

Forms of scape-animal

pluralscape-animals

Origin of scape-animal

From scape + animal; modelled on scapegoat.

Questions about scape-animal

What does scape-animal mean?
Scape-animal means an animal that has symbolically had human diseases and sins transferred to it and then is sent out alive into the wilderness to carry away the afflictions.
What part of speech is scape-animal?
Scape-animal is a noun.
What is the plural of scape-animal?
The plural of scape-animal is scape-animals.

Words near scape-animal in the dictionary

  1. scap-net
  2. scap-nets
  3. Scapa
  4. Scapa Flow
  5. scape
  6. scape-animal
  7. scape-animals
  8. scape-bird
  9. scape-birds
  10. scape-wheel
  11. scape-wheels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scape-animal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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