patsy

pat·sy

noun

pl. -·sies

Slang a person easily imposed upon or victimized

Origin of patsy

probably altered (after Patsy, nickname for Patrick) from Italian pazzo, crazy

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MLA Style

"patsy." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 06 December 2018. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/patsy>.

APA Style

patsy. (n.d.). Retrieved December 06th, 2018, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/patsy

patsy

noun

pl. pat·sies Slang

A person easily taken advantage of, cheated, blamed, or ridiculed.

Origin of patsy

Perhaps from Italian pazzo fool from Old Italian paccio

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Link/Cite

Link to this page

Cite this page

MLA Style

"patsy." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 06 December 2018. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/patsy>.

APA Style

patsy. (n.d.). Retrieved December 06th, 2018, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/patsy

Noun

(plural patsies)

(informal, derogatory) A person who is taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something.

Origin

The term dates back at least to the 1870s in the United States, close to the peak of Irish migration. The OED's recent revisions link Patsy with Pat and Paddy, the stereotype of the bogtrotter just off the boat. The American Heritage Dictionary and Online Etymology Dictionary quotes the OED it may derive from the Italian pazzo ("madman"), and south Italian dialect paccio ("fool"). Another possibility is the term derives from Patsy Bolivar, a character in an 1880s minstrel skit who was blamed whenever anything went wrong, in Broadway musical comedies, for example in The Errand Boy [1904] and Patsy in Politics [1907].

Proper noun