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No matter what had really happened, this person will always blame and find an appearing logical/thought out way/strategy to it that, fundamentally, it's the other person who was the cause for all the trouble AND everything else that came from this trouble as well and from the next and so on.

No (slang) words like "jerk", "*sshole" etc. please.

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  • 3
    I'd be quite happy with He's a buck-passer, but that seems to have surprisingly little currency.
    – FumbleFingers
    Jul 18, 2014 at 19:52
  • .......... him.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Jul 18, 2014 at 22:11
  • 1
    Often, such a person is called a "manager" or a "politician".
    – Dan
    Jul 19, 2014 at 4:12
  • @FumbleFingers Buck-passer relies on the person having had 'the buck' not just on dishing out blame (where the 'disher' is not to blame)
    – Frank
    Jul 20, 2014 at 7:29
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    @Frank: I suppose much depends on whether the person concerned is already being blamed by others (and trying to pass the buck, re-assign blame/responsibility to someone else), or simply likes finding other people to blame regardless of whether he personally might otherwise be "in the frame". In the latter case, I'd just say he's a shit-stirrer.
    – FumbleFingers
    Jul 20, 2014 at 12:31

9 Answers 9

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13

Blameshifter fits the bill.

blameshifting

Part of Speech: n

Definition: the act of transferring responsibility for an error or problem to another; also written blame shifting

Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon

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  • There is no such word from what I gather. Can anyone provide a dictionary reference for the word "blameshifter"?
    – aaa90210
    Jul 20, 2014 at 21:12
  • Fair enough. I only documented blameshifting.
    – GMB
    Jul 20, 2014 at 22:48
  • "blameshifter" is someone doing the blameshifting. :-)
    – Peter M. - stands for Monica
    Apr 6, 2018 at 20:53
10

  1. a finger-pointer - someone quick to divert attention or blame to someone else

  2. defensive (though that's more general than just blaming others)

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9

A 'blamer'. It's slang for someone who always blames others. e.g. 'My mother was a blamer from her early teens.' It tends to be applied to senior citizens. I don't make these things up. There seems to be a correlation between chronic intermeddlers (yentas) and chronic blamers. Often the blamer and the yenta are the same person.

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  • Julian Teasure in a Ted talk entitled "How to speak so that people want to listen" coins the word "blamethrower" for that kind of people.
    – user58319
    Feb 1, 2017 at 10:21
4

That person is 'an adept at scapegoating'.

scapegoat (ˈskeɪpˌɡəʊt )

Definitions

noun

  1. a person made to bear the blame for others

  2. (Old Testament) a goat used in the ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16); it was symbolically laden with the sins of the Israelites and sent into the wilderness to be destroyed

verb

  1. (transitive) to make a scapegoat of

Word Origin C16: from escape + goat, coined by William Tyndale to translate Biblical Hebrew azāzēl (probably) goat for Azazel, mistakenly thought to mean 'goat that escapes'

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/scapegoat

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3

I would say buck-passer is correct.

Anther class of idioms for someone who is difficult to blame involves variations around the word "teflon"

"He wears a teflon coat"

"He is made from teflon"

Because nothing (including blame) sticks to teflon. However, this does not necessarily involve the subject shifting blame, they just somehow always escape blame somehow or other.

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3
  • 'Buckpasser' doesn't work: it simply means to pass (usually work) onto other people, when you should do it yourself. It's not specific enough for blaming other for things. 'Blameshifter' works better, or 'rationalizer', although I don't know there's a single word for all the things the OP is trying to describe.
    – Pete855217
    Jul 20, 2014 at 6:59
  • @Pete855217 I disagree, I think it means to pass blame or responsibility onto someone else. I have never even heard of the word "blameshifter" being used to describe someone - it sounds like a made up word. thefreedictionary.com/buck-passer
    – aaa90210
    Jul 20, 2014 at 7:25
  • -1 for Buckpasser, you can only be a buck-passer if you have the buck. Simply blaming someone isn't passing the buck. @Pete855217 I agree with aaa90201, buck-passing is passing blame onto someone else (when you have the blame on yourself). Where is it common to mean 'passing work that should do yourself to other people'?
    – Frank
    Jul 20, 2014 at 7:32
1

Consider, blame artist

Man has forever been a blame artist. We specialize in blaming others for our personal failures and even our individual irresponsibility. To the extent that even when a man has run down into a state no different from a carriage horse only good enough for haulage, he fails to recognize that. Instead he continues to see the other man plowing by hand as the slave. The hassle between the slave, servant and master is longstanding.

Tug of War

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-1

Perhaps rationalizer? According to ODO, rationalize means

Attempt to explain or justify (one’s own or another’s behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate

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  • But even if you're, without blame involved, try to to think logically about things you're a rationalizer as well, right? Isn't rationalizer easily to be confused with simply thinking logically without anything else, like blame?
    – user76935
    Jul 18, 2014 at 20:00
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    While one of the meanings of rationalize is to think logically about something, it is more often used to describe a process that strains logic to find justification. It also can be used for tortured explanations even when there is no specific blame involved.
    – bib
    Jul 18, 2014 at 20:08
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    As someone has said, rationalization is the skin of reason stuffed with a lie.
    – GMB
    Jul 18, 2014 at 22:16
-1

Some really good ones! Projection definitely but very clinical?

Shortest word for me, avoider. Of their own responsibility of their behaviour.

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  • We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed.
    – NVZ ♦
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:09
  • It has context. People who project blame onto other people are avoiding something. Either taking responsibility for their own fault or behaviour. Projection is a more clinical term for it. There are also some very long explanations I was simply adding a short alternative.
    – Stephen Tierney
    Dec 5, 2016 at 16:33
-4

Well, unfortunately, to so cleverly dodge responsibility/blame AND effectively shift it onto someone else, (and let's just call it like it is without the sugarcoating - that's lying; the worst kind), is a component of the group of behaviors associated with sociopathy - especially when this behavior is the norm, (chronic), and not the exception. It is plausible, even likely, this person is a sociopath. At the very least, he/she is 'borderline'.

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