Fall guy
Meaning
A fall guy is a person who is wrongly or conveniently blamed for a mistake, crime, or failure, often to protect the real culprit.
Origin
The phrase 'fall guy' emerges from the rough-and-tumble world of early 20th-century American boxing and professional wrestling. In these staged or competitive sports, a 'fall' was the ultimate defeat, signifying being knocked down or pinned. A 'fall guy,' therefore, was the fighter who was arranged to take the loss, often deliberately losing a match to further a storyline or for financial gain. From this literal context of taking a pre-determined defeat, the term quickly slipped into general slang, evolving to describe anyone who is set up to take the blame or consequences for another's actions, a convenient victim engineered to absorb the 'fall' for someone else's misdeeds.
Examples
- When the embezzlement scheme was uncovered, the CEO quickly appointed a low-level accountant to be the fall guy, diverting suspicion from himself.
- Despite several people being involved in the project's disaster, only one team member was made the fall guy and subsequently fired.