Scape-animal
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 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."
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
From scape + animal; modelled on scapegoat.
More for "scape-animal"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.