folk devil

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word folk devil. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word folk devil, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say folk devil in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word folk devil you have here. The definition of the word folk devil will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition offolk devil, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation

  • Audio (AU)(file)

Noun

folk devil (plural folk devils)

  1. (idiomatic, sociology) A person or type of person blamed by the public for various ills, as during a moral panic.
    • 1987 July 9, Steve Lohr, “Newcastle Journal: Half of England where jobs are as rare as Tories”, in New York Times‎, retrieved 27 February 2009:
      It may be true, as Fred Robinson, a senior researcher at Newcastle University said, "Many people view Mrs. Thatcher as a kind of folk devil.
    • 1996 December 18, Robert Verkaik, “‘Crash’ tackling”, in The Independent (UK)‎, retrieved 8 June 2014:
      "Every time things become problematic we start careering towards social causes and pick on a folk devil to attribute all evil."
    • 2013 October 20, Jesse Walker, “Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know”, in Boston Globe‎, retrieved 8 June 2014:
      There is always a tendency, in the mainstream as much as the fringes, to blame real or imagined social problems on a folk devil.

Synonyms

Hypernyms

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia