Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A scapegoat.
  • noun A boy formerly raised with a prince or other young nobleman and whipped for the latter's misdeeds.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Someone punished for the errors of others.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who is punished for the errors of others

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English wippen "flap violently", from Proto-Germanic wipp-, from Proto-Indo-European wib- "move quickly". Whipping boy first recorded 1647.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word whipping boy.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.