noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Blameshifting; the act of absolving oneself of responsibility or concern for a given matter by claiming to lack authority or jurisdiction. idiomatic, uncountable

   "It's from here onwards that the whole web of buck-passing and excuses began."

Synonyms

All synonyms

blame gamecircumventionelusionevasionfrustrationrunaround

Example

More examples

"It's from here onwards that the whole web of buck-passing and excuses began."

Etymology

From buck + passing.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.