fall guy
19
7.6
- noun
- /fɔl ɡaɪ/
- Informal
:
chivo expiatorio
- After the scandal, Jake became the fall guy for the company's mismanagement, taking all the blame while others walked away free.
- need a fall guy
- perfect fall guy
- designated fall guy
I'm not denying any of that, but he is the fall guy here.
- I'm not denying any of that, but he is the fall guy here.
- Rizzo was thrown under the bus by sort of the general public, for he was the fall guy for the torture campaign.
- Ego is always a fall guy, so individual means by.
Examples
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Don't use him as the fall guy for a larger political point.
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If he loses, he'll be the fall guy for the entire Republican Party.
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But he was pretty much the fall guy.
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But why should my brother be the fall guy?
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Somebody had to be the fall guy, I suppose.
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Perhaps he was a convenient fall guy for someone else?
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Gen P had spoken out in Jan 2012, so he became the fall guy.
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Here's your opportunity to make me the department's fall guy again.
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What usually happens in circumstances like this is that ZephCo would identify a fall guy, someone in the marketing department, and terminate them publicly...
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Firstly, Goldman Sachs is a fall guy for the banking elite of Basel, Switzerland.
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Synonyms
A woman who is easily tricked and often blamed for other people's mistakes
How Blamed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person who is blamed so others avoid punishment' is not directly derivable from 'fall' (descent/disgrace) plus 'guy' (person). The relation is idiomatic/metaphorical and language-specific, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would unlikely predict this sense without prior exposure.
Etymology
The noun fall guy comes from old scams where one person was chosen to fall, that is, to be blamed while the others escaped. That image of someone set up to 'take the blame' is why fall guy means a person who is blamed so others avoid punishment.