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Whipping boy
noun
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A boy who was whipped in the stead of a misbehaving prince in early modern Europe. historical
"As the whipping boy, he must take the whippings for the royal heir, Prince Brat."
- 2 a man who is punished for the errors of others wordnet
- 3 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."
Etymology
First recorded in 1647. It is debated if this type of proxy punishment actually existed, or how widespread it was.
See also for "whipping boy"
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