whipping boy

Noun

whipping boy (plural whipping boys)

1. (historical) A boy who was whipped in the stead of a misbehaving prince in early modern Europe.
   • As the whipping boy, he must take the whippings for the royal heir, Prince Brat.
2. (transferred sense) Someone punished for the errors of others.
   • Once upon a time there was a little Power, the half-bankrupt wreck of a once great empire, that lost its temper with England, the whipping-boy of all the world, and behaved, as every one knows, most scandalously.1899, Rudyard Kipling, “Judson and the Empire”, in Soldiers Three
   • In others he denounces it as rank Judaism, the Jew having at that time become for him the whipping boy for all modern humanity.1902 [1898], [George] Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite […] , second edition, London: Grant Richards, page 103

   Synonyms:

   scapegoat, sacrificial lamb, escapegoat, fall guy, folk devil, goat, Joe Soap, patsy