Meaning

• In the Mosaic Day of Atonement ritual, a goat symbolically imbued with the sins of the people, and sent out alive into the wilderness while another was sacrificed.

• Someone punished for the error or errors of someone else.

  "He is making me a scapegoat."

Meaning

• To punish someone for the error or errors of someone else; to make a scapegoat of.

• To blame something for the problems of a given society without evidence to back up the claim.